A homeschooled kid who’s returned home to Michigan, outside hitter Paige Briggs-Romine has become one of the Rise’s most versatile attackers.
Story by Alex Eisen | Photo by Nicolas Carrillo
As the television inside flickered with Olympic beach volleyball — Misty May-Treanor flying across the sand, fearless and free — 12-year-old Paige Briggs turned to her mom, Pam, and asked if they could go outside.
They started peppering in the grass, counting every pass, every controlled touch. Within a week, they had worked their way up to 100 in a row.
“I was like, ‘This is so much fun,’” Briggs-Romine recalled.
Next came the neon yellow rec-league T-shirts and zebra-striped knee pads. The servers who were just trying to get the ball over the net. It wasn’t polished, or pretty. But it was the beginning of something neither she nor anyone else could have predicted.
For Briggs-Romine, her love of volleyball started in her backyard in Ortonville, Michigan, where the ball stayed in the air simply because she wanted it to. There was no blueprint guiding her next steps, no rigid schedule mapping out the future.
She was homeschooled for seven and a half years, her schoolwork finished in a couple of focused hours each day. What followed was unstructured time to explore.
“I learned who I was without being in school,” Briggs-Romine said. “It was just me, my mom, and my brother. I had a lot of free time and got to pursue other things, which volleyball was one big one, but I got to pursue art as well. I had a lot of co-ops that I went to when I was homeschooled, from bowling to ski club to skating.”
That freedom shaped her. It fostered independence, but it also reinforced her naturally introverted nature. Briggs-Romine grew comfortable in quiet spaces, comfortable observing before speaking, and comfortable drawing energy from within.
So, when she had to enroll at one of Michigan’s largest high schools to get verified transcripts for college, the constant motion and noise felt overwhelming. Suddenly, the girl who had spent years learning in a quiet home environment was navigating crowded hallways and unfamiliar classrooms at Lake Orion High School, roughly 45 minutes north of Detroit.
“I was so scared all the time,” she admitted.
Yet Briggs-Romine rose to the challenge. She led the volleyball team to a Class A State Championship as a senior and was a 2018 Miss Michigan Volleyball finalist. She also honed her skills with Legacy Volleyball Club, laying the foundation for the next step in her journey.
But before volleyball, there was soccer. She was a speedy winger, who ran endlessly up and down the pitch. For years, she thought that was the sport that might carry her to college.
The problem was the physical side of the game. Briggs-Romine preferred to dodge and evade contact rather than fight for loose balls or deliver a tackle.
“My parents used to pay me if I knocked a girl down in soccer,” she laughed. “I would just run around people. I never earned any money.”
Volleyball fit her in a way soccer never had. It rewarded timing, precision, and creativity, while giving her a challenge she could master, rather than one she kept trying to escape.
Briggs-Romine started as a setter in eighth grade after a club clinic turned into a roster spot and weekend travel tournaments. The jump from rec league to the Legacy Volleyball Club was sudden and overwhelming, but she embraced it. It was new and exciting.
Recruiting brought another wave of uncertainty. She thought she wanted to stay close to home. Michigan schools felt safe. Familiar. But her mom encouraged balance — one close option, one far away, and one in between. The farthest one was Western Kentucky.
The visits were exhausting. She fell asleep in the car afterward, emotionally drained from the pressure of making a life-shaping decision. But in Bowling Green, something settled.
“It was a feeling,” Briggs-Romine said. “I felt peace there. Like they were going to take care of me. My mom was getting a lot of the recruiting phone calls, and she would tell me that they were calling all the time. Eventually, I decided to talk with them and make a visit.”
Briggs-Romine didn’t want to be someone’s backup plan. She wanted to be wanted. Western Kentucky wanted her — persistently, consistently — and she said yes.
Over five seasons with the Hilltoppers, Briggs-Romine became one of the most decorated players in program history. She was a three-time AVCA All-American, Conference USA Player of the Year, and a five-time all-conference selection. She amassed more than 1,800 kills and built a reputation for being relentless and versatile.
But when asked about defining moments in her college career, she didn’t start with awards. Briggs-Romine talked about a conference semifinal in her final season, when her setter dislocated her shoulder mid-match. The backup setter hadn’t set all season. The plan on paper had evaporated.
“I just remember us looking at each other and going, ‘It doesn’t matter who’s out there, we’re winning this,’” she said.
The setter returned in a brace. No dumps. Limited back sets. No diving. It didn’t matter. The team adapted. They chose resilience.
“That attitude,” Briggs-Romine said, “that you can just turn it on — that sticks with me.”
Professional volleyball in the United States was still forming during her college career. Briggs-Romine saw logos on social media and heard the rumors, unsure if it would ever become real. When it started to take shape, she even sent an email to Rise head coach Cathy George, introducing herself and expressing interest, fully aware she might not hear back.
She did. It was polite, brief, and professional. “We can’t talk yet.” But her name was out there.
On draft day, she sat at home with her parents and her fiancé, Connor Romine, waiting for the phone to ring. It finally did. The Orlando Valkyries selected her No. 5 overall. The call was extremely quick. There was shock, a flurry of “thank yous” from Briggs-Romine, and Valkyries head coach Amy Pauly assuring her they would be in touch soon.
Family members started browsing flights and houses in Florida.
An hour later, the phone rang again.
“You’ve been traded.”
Just like that, Briggs-Romine was headed to the Omaha Supernovas.
The news took a while to sink in. But beneath the confusion was something steady: someone had chosen her. Omaha saw her value. They wanted her in their gym.
Fast forward five months, and Briggs-Romine finished her rookie season with a championship. She wasn’t a headline player, and her role in the title match against the Grand Rapids Rise was limited to serving four times and recording a single attack attempt that ended in an error, but the experience of being part of a winning team was unforgettable.
“I got to go in,” she said, smiling. “And yes, it was against the Rise, and I never get to live that down when Cathy brings it up. I’m always like, ‘I only served a few balls against you, and you got the point every time — so technically, I actually helped you guys.’ But yeah, that was really fun and some good memories. I hope this team can experience that too, because I really think we can.”
When the door opened in the summer of 2024 for her to return to Michigan and join the Rise, everything finally felt aligned.
“It was an opportunity for her to come closer to home,” George said of signing Briggs-Romine. “I have known her for a very long time. She attended my Michigan State volleyball camp when she was younger, and I have followed her career. I have always liked her as a player and how she competes. When we talked about her role here, she was also in the process of getting married and building a future with her husband. This felt like a really good place for her to do that.”
In 2024, Paige Briggs married Connor Romine. The nickname PBR followed naturally.
Marriage changed her relationship with volleyball in subtle, grounding ways.
“It’s really great to come home to somebody who’s not a volleyball person,” she said. “Life doesn’t revolve around volleyball. This is my job. I love it. But you can separate things.”
At 5-foot-10, she knows she’s undersized for a professional outside hitter and has heard it her whole career. Instead of letting that hold her back, Briggs-Romine uses timing, angles, and strategy to make herself a constant threat.
“I’m not going to overpower people,” she said. “So, I had to have another skill.”
That skill became serve receive. Passing, in her mind, sets everything else in motion.
“If you can’t pass, you’re stuck as a team,” Briggs-Romine said. “When we don’t pass well, it looks so much different on the court. It effects everything we are trying to do.”
Briggs-Romine trained footwork relentlessly, along with platform angles, early positioning, and self-correction cues. She studied the mental side of the skill — how one lapse in focus can snowball into a serving run for the other team.
Playing defense is different, she explained. “A ball up is an up. But in serve receive, that first contact dictates the offense.”
When executed well, it looks effortless.
“It’s not,” Briggs-Romine said. “It’s a skill that’s very undervalued.”
On offense, Briggs-Romine blends creativity with power. She studies approach paths, disguises her tips, and looks for seams where others would take a safe swing.
“Odds are they think you’re not going to take a big swing in a tough situation,” she said. “But those are the opportunities when you can make something happen.”
Volleyball, for her, is constant calculation. In serve receive, she’s evaluating the server’s toss, spin, and trajectory. As the ball crosses the net, she’s processing body positioning, defensive responsibilities, and transition routes. It never slows down.
“Soon as you slip in focus,” she said, “that’s when things don’t go well.”
It’s exhausting and exhilarating. It’s her craft.
Over the past two seasons with the Rise, Briggs-Romine has earned two MLV Player of the Week honors, recognizing her all-around impact in passing, digs and kills. As of Feb. 23, she had recorded 16 double-doubles, tying the team record with Claire Chaussee and current teammate Carli Snyder. Across 36 matches (128 sets), she is averaging 9.7 kills and 9.9 digs per match. She ranks fourth in team history in kills (349) and third in both aces (18) and digs (356) — impressive production considering she did not start her first 10 matches with Grand Rapids before becoming a regular fixture in the rotation.
From backyard pepper to calling for a ball in front of thousands, Briggs-Romine has grown from a quiet observer into a player who can shape a match without needing to dominate it.
Her faith also keeps her grounded, as she approaches each match with a sense of thankfulness and gratitude for the chance to play the game she loves.
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for God blessing me,” she said. “There’s no reason for a homeschooled, undersized outside hitter from a mid-major to be here.”
Yet here she is, back in Michigan and playing for the Rise, building a career she never thought possible. Every practice, every match, she carries the same quiet curiosity and determination that once drove her to get 100 touches in a row.