by Camryn Wise knew she wanted to be a Ball State Cardinal.
The Wapahani High School graduate remembers visiting Worthen Arena with her father as the two watched Ball State women’s basketball represent the university on the court.
“I’m eight years old and I’m watching women’s basketball and thinking, ‘Wow, they are the coolest people.’ All I wanted to be was the one out on the court in that jersey,” Wise said. “And it transferred over to volleyball and watching [former Cardinal] Marie Plitt play. She was No. 5, and my jersey number was always No. 5 because of her.
“Now, I get to be out on the court and repay that. Ball State is everything to me, and it’s home.”
Wise is just one of the few Delaware County athletes who are still playing for their home college. But while Wise never intended to leave Muncie, some did.
“Growing up, I was like ‘No Ball State,” Kendra Keesling said. “No Ball State for me. I wanted to go somewhere like Arizona, Florida or California.”
A former Delta Eagle, the Ball State track and field junior had no intentions of staying when she turned in her Blue and Gold gear. While competing for the Eagles’ track and field team, she said she found a second home there, and wanted that for her collegiate career.
Since the first day she visited Ball State, that feeling hasn’t went away.
“I’m running for my best friends. [My coaches] are father figures and my mother figures. It really is running for someone that truly cares about us,” Keesling said. “They’ve never once made us feel like we weren’t enough. They ask about how our family’s doing every single day. They truly just care about us as people rather than our performance, and I think that really says a lot about the program.”
Though Wise and Keesling stayed in the 765, others did leave. Ball State senior soccer player Addie Chester (Delta) and women’s volleyball head coach Kelli Miller Phillips (Muncie Central) both left when they started their college athletic ventures.
Chester began her Division I career at Louisville while Miller Phillips played and coached at Purdue. But after time away, both said Muncie was a right fit as they felt the calling to come home.
“It’s been a huge part of my identity and my life. I have so many connections at Ball State,” Miller Phillips said. “My husband went here, my brother played baseball here, and he’s in the Hall of Fame. My dad went to Ball State, and so did my sister in law. There are so many interconnections that make Ball State really special to me.”
When a women’s volleyball assistant coaching job opened in 2010, she said the idea of coaching back home and representing the Delaware County community was something she couldn’t pass up. In 2016, she was named Ball State’s next head coach.
In her time since taking the lead role, the Cardinals are 171-98 and have a Mid-American Conference (MAC) mark of 105-44. They are currently on a 9-0 start to conference play and are the No.1 team in the MAC.
“Those are just things that I’m really, really blessed and fortunate to have. I don’t take that for granted at all,” she said. “I’m super appreciative and try to get the community involved because I know what an impact Ball State has made on me in my career.”
Chester echoed Miller Phillip’s thoughts on the university, and when she decided to transfer from Louisville following the 2023 season, she knew home was always an option. In 2025, Chester currently has 10 goals in the 2025 season, becoming the second Cardinal in the program’s history to have double-digit goals in consecutive seasons (10 in 2024).
“Soccer players from Delta High School have been coming to games and supporting us this season,” Chester said. “It’s been super cool.”
Though hometown Cardinals have grown up around the area, most of the teammates have not. Keesling recounted a story that happened with a teammate as she needed to get home in a hurry. However, she did not have a vehicle to make the trek.
Keesling tossed her fellow Cardinal the keys to her Chevy Silverado and said, ‘Go.’
“It’s just little things like that I’m able to do because I’m ‘the Mocal’ and I can borrow my parents’ car if needed,” she said.
But it’s not just emergency situations that the homegrown athletes are able to help with. Whether it’s letting them know about local hot spots like Amazing Joe’s or Elm Street Brewing Co., Keesling said she takes on the responsibility of showing her teammates how special this place is.
“I love being able to bring my teammates home. My roommate (graduate student) Kinli Nettles is from Illinois. So she has a three-hour drive home, so she can go to my house anytime she wants to eat dinner. My parents will do whatever she needs,” Keesling said. “There are just so many things that my family is able to provide, including a sense of home for my other teammates. That’s super special.
“I think that to be loved is to be seen. I think to be loved is to be heard. Knowing how people, especially people who live so far away, interact with their culture, what their life looked like and what they’re used to back home makes it much easier for me to love them and give them a sense of home here that they don’t necessarily have.”
But the overall goal isn’t just to take care of the athletes who currently call Ball State home. Wise remembers meeting former Ball State women’s basketball player Jill Morrison and taking a photo with her. That picture with the Winchester, Indiana native hung in Wise’s bedroom for years.
Now, it’s young Cardinal fans who want an autograph and a photo with Wise.
“[I like] to be able to do that for younger kids, and show them that no matter where you’re from, no matter what your size is, you can play Division I, especially at Ball State,” she said.
Contact Zach Carter via email at zachary.carter@bsu.edu, zachcarter039@gmail.com or via X @ZachCarter85.
