Kelly Sheffield goes scorched earth on Wisconsin transfer loss: 'We were sabotaged'

Kelly Sheffield is a pretty mild-mannered coach, a true players' coach, but with a brilliant mind, working to figure out how to attack other teams. You rarely see him worked up or overly frustrated, and yet that's exactly what he is when he talks about Una Vajagic's transfer out of Wisconsin. He went on about a four-minute total rant with Jon Arias about how her transfer blindsided Wisconsin, and his full quotes are eye-popping.

He completely lays out exactly what happened, how it went down, and how awful it was - going so far as to even say that Wisconsin was sabotaged.

Kelly Sheffield says he couldn't believe why Una Vajagic would transfer and fought for her to stay

Related: All 6 Wisconsin volleyball outgoing transfers have found new homes

You could easily clip the whole video and even the second one posted by Jon Arias and pull out quotes, but this might be the most telling part of what he says:

"We come to find out that Una is considering leaving, which threw all of us... and all of the sudden she became a totally different person from what we've known for two years. That's the only one I've ever fought for, because I could not understand, I could not get my head around what was happening here. We were clearly being sabotaged. "

Kelly Sheffield

He goes on to say that she decided to leave because her goals are to play at the next level, and yet that's part of why he was shocked. He pointed to Sarah Franklin and Mimi Colyer as examples of how they've placed outside hitters at the next level. Sheffield talked about how they paid her and helped her recover from not one but two injuries, and just like that, she turned on them.

Sheffield went on to explain what Wisconsin fans watched happen over the course of the season. Una went from being okay to good to very good, and finally, in the tournament, she was exceptional. He said, That's the career path they had her on, and she didn't want to listen. "She wasn't happy with her role." But that part baffled him because she was second on the team in attempts and would be the most attempts out of the returning players.

He is clearly frustrated, hot, and still very bothered by her transfer. It wasn't part of the plan, and he basically said that Arizona State, her family, or someone was undermining them with the "sabotage" line.

The sabotage idea came from claims she was making. Vajagic claimed that Wisconsin was trying to turn her into a defensive specialist. She then claimed that Wisconsin was paying the incoming players more than her. Sheffield says neither was true nor even remotely true, but both were seeds planted in her brain and damaged the relationship beyond repair. "She stopped talking to me and stopped talking to all her teammates."

It's a sad story of where the college sports world is now, even in volleyball. Watch or listen to the full interview here.