April Chapple, a former Tennessee volleyball player and a member of the Tennessee Athletics Hall of Fame, has died. She was 62.
Chapple, an Inglewood, California, native, starred for Tennessee from 1981-84, helping the program win three SEC regular-season championships and three SEC Tournament titles.
The Lady Vols reached the NCAA Tournament in all four of Chapple's seasons, and in 1982, Tennessee earned its first NCAA Tournament win in program history, beating Northwestern in five sets.
In 1984, she was named SEC Player of the Year and SEC Tournament MVP, on her way to becoming UT's second All-American in volleyball.
Among the program's all-time leaders, she ranks second in career aces (244) and third in career kills (1,650). Her top season for
aces came in 1983, when she tallied 95, ranking second in the non-rally scoring era. In 1984, she recorded her best season in kills with 483, a total that ranks ninth in program history during that same era.
In 1985, Chapple was named to the U.S. National Team.
After college, she spent eight years playing professionally in Italy, helping Reggio Emilia reach the Division I Italian League finals, the Italian Cup finals and the European Cup Winners' Cup (Coppa delle Coppe) finals.
She also won the Italian 3x3 Beach Championship.
Chapple was the first pick in Major League Volleyball history, the first professional women's volleyball league in the United States, and earned First Team All-Pro honors playing for the New York Liberties.
After her playing days ended, Chapple built a career as a volleyball writer and educator. She spent four years as a columnist for the American Volleyball Coaches Association's Coaching Volleyball magazine.
She also spent several years coaching club volleyball, most recently as boys program supervisor for SQUAD Volleyball Club in Las Vegas.
She was inducted into the Tennessee Athletics Hall of Fame in 2003.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: April Chapple, Tennessee volleyball player, All-American in 1984, dies at 62
