UW Athletic Hall of Fame: Laura Abbinante

BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider

MADISON, Wis. — Not long after John Cook became coach of the Wisconsin volleyball program in 1992, he embarked on one of the most important projects of his professional life.

He needed to recruit a top-of-the-line setter, one who not only had the athletic skills to run his offense, but one with chutzpa who would motivate by example and accept the challenge of having a dilapidated program rebuilt around her.

Cook found Laura (Abbinante) Wakeham in small-town Illinois and, soon, a legend came to life.

That could be a reference to Cook, who left UW after the 1998 season and has since guided Nebraska to four national championships.

But that could also shine a light on Abbinante, whose impact on the Badgers continues to be felt nearly 30 years later.

During a career that spanned 1993 to ’96, Abbinante became the second Wisconsin player to earn All-America honors (second team, ’96) and the first to be named first-team all-Big Ten Conference more than once (1995, ’96).

Abbinante also set the program record for career assists that stood for 25 years and, in the process, helped the Badgers find their way out of an identity crisis. That resume is why Abbinante is being inducted into the UW Athletic Hall of Fame.

Wisconsin was trending upward in 1990 when it won its first Big Ten championship and its first NCAA tournament match, but it began to reel in August of ’91 when popular coach Steve Lowe died from complications due to lung cancer. His top assistant, Margie Fitzpatrick, took over on an interim basis before Cook, a former assistant at Nebraska and an assistant coach with the U.S. Men’s National Team, was handed the reins on a full-time basis.

Cook proceeded to oversee the first losing season at Wisconsin since 1986, fueling his desire to find an elite setter as well as other things. His search took him to the village of Itasca, which is 25 miles northwest of Chicago, where he found his first recruit in Abbinante. He promptly sold her on his vision for greatness — hers and his — which included NCAA titles, Big Ten dominance and, perhaps, a berth on the U.S….