Volleyball's Morgan Kull sings national anthem at Final Four

Volleyball's Morgan Kull sings national anthem at Final FourVolleyball's Morgan Kull sings national anthem at Final Four
Wade Rackley/Auburn Athletics

Morgan Kull

MINNEAPOLIS – When Auburn beat Kentucky to win the Midwest Regional in Kansas City, Morgan Kull raced to Toomer's Corner to celebrate.

Morgan, a junior setter on Auburn's volleyball team, soon learned she would be joining the Tigers in Minneapolis for the Final Four.

"I was on Toomer's Corner, rolling the trees." Kull said. "And I got a text message saying, 'Hey, you're headed to the Final Four to sing the national anthem.'"

In recent years, the NCAA has invited student-athletes from each NCAA Tournament regional winning university to perform "The Star-Spangled-Banner" at the Final Four.

"Since Auburn's never been to the Final Four before, we don't really know how it works," Kull said. "My assistant coach reached out to me and she was like, 'Hey, send in a video. If we make it to the Final Four, you can sing the national anthem.' So I recorded a video, sent it in."

Kull, from St. Charles, Illinois, grew up singing in choirs at school and church. In high school, she took voice lessons and also played in the band.

On Friday, the day before the national semifinals, Morgan joined Virginia volleyball player Milla Ciprian, Michigan State soccer goalkeeper Zach Kovan and Texas Tech hurdler Dorian Williams Jr. to rehearse at MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis.

With Williams playing acoustic guitar, Kull, Kovan and Ciprian formed a trio. After creating their own arrangement, the student-athletes rehearsed again Friday night at U.S. Bank Stadium before Saturday's performance.

"Having the basketball players out there, it's fun to be the person they see before they step out on the court, see another familiar face," said Kull, who was also mindful of representing ROTC students and veterans in the Auburn community.

"It's fun to represent the United States," she said. "It's quite an opportunity and I'm really happy to do it."

Despite 72,711 in attendance, and millions more watching on TV, nerves were not an issue, Morgan said.

"I was less nervous than playing," she said. "I think it's different because you practice the same thing so many times and a game gives you different things all the time. You're always surprised what's happening, so that's easy because it was controlled. So I was like, 'Whatever, I can do this all day.' But if you asked me to play in the basketball game, I would be nervous.

"We felt really good about it going in. Since we're all athletes, it was like a hype experience. We had a lot of fun. We felt really good about the performance. When we got down, we had the nice adrenalin rush."

After performing for such a vast audience, Kull received more congratulations than she could acknowledge.

"I'm still trying to respond to people on social media," she said. "So much support, especially the Auburn people, even though we lost. I was walking around, everyone was like, 'Great job, great job.' That was really nice. It's just nice to know that everybody recognized who I was and was supportive, even fans from other teams. It was great."

Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer