UAB’s Jasmine Haas has alwaysbeen undersized - and unmatched

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - March 9, 2026

If tape measures determined the success of an athlete in certain sports then Jasmine Haas shouldn’t be doing the things she’s done on the beach volleyball court.

The UAB senior shouldn’t be considered one of the top college beach volleyball players in the country. She shouldn’t be the leader in all-time wins in UAB’s beach volleyball history. She shouldn’t be the cornerstone of a program that is climbing the college beach volley ladder.

Her height is supposed to keep her from standing out on the sand, which leads us to an important question. Where does the tape measure stop when measuring Jasmine Haas?

“Well, I’m a good 5-3 now,” Haas said with a laugh.

For the record, the official UAB beach volleyball roster has Haas, a Cincinnati native, who is known as ‘Jazzie’ by family, teammates and friends in the volleyball community, is listed at 5 feet, 4 inches. Perhaps she gains that extra inch when wearing shoes, which you don’t do while playing beach volleyball, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. Bigger is not always better, as evidenced by 5-foot-6 U.S Olympian Kristen Nuss, who was the shortes beach volleyball player to represent the country since 5-foot-6 Barbara Fontana did it in 1996.

So, this is not a story told simply by looking at a tape measure. This is a story told about an extraordinary beach volleyball player making the most of her opportunity.

“I think that's been such a driving force in in her life,” UAB volleyball coach Delaney Rose said. “One of her idols is Kristen Nuss, who is just a little bit taller than her, who was really one of the first people to pave the way for that. I think that Jazzie sees she can inspire other girls. Everybody knows who Jazzie is if you go around beach volleyball. Everyone knows who she is because she doesn't fit the mold. It made her have a chip on her shoulder her whole life and it fits so great in our program because it's like we want to prove people wrong.”

The foundation of what makes Haas a great player begins with the simple fact that she’s a great athlete. Haas began gymnastics at the age of two and evolved into a Level 8 gymnast by the time she was 12. She decided to quit the sport to spend more time developing her beach volleyball skills. Once in high school, she added diving and track and field, where she competed in pole vault and long jump, to her list of sports. By the time she was done, she had scholarship offers in diving and track and field.

“I love my friend group in those two different sports, but it made me miss beach more,” Haas said.

By that time, beach volleyball already had her heart.

“Where I trained back at home, I trained with Ohio Valley Beach, it’s a great program,” Haas said. “But when I first started training, I was like the youngest there. We had girls that were like five to six years older than me, four years older than me. They were more on the older end. I was probably around 12 and they were in high school, like going through recruiting processes, and they were insanely good. Like I just kept comparing myself to the 16-year-olds and the 18-year-olds and trying to keep up with them. I didn't want to be on the lower court. I wanted to be on their court. But then I'd go on their court and I wouldn't feel great. I feel like a drill killer. So that was really hard for me. But then those girls went off and they were the one seeds at like big schools like FSU and South Carolina, TCU, like they're crazy good.”

Eventually, Haas fit right in with the “crazy good” players. She made her name playing in tournaments throughout the region and the country. She began getting recruiting attention from smaller schools but still needed to prove herself. That process grinded to a halt when Covid halted many of the tournaments.

“I did a lot of training, but I never really got out to tournaments,” Haas said. “Even though I could feel myself getting better, it was hard to get film out because there's probably only one tournament that I could go to and then everything shut down with COVID. I only really had minimal film, maybe some practice film.”

She found an adult’s tournament in Tennessee and went to that with a friend from home. She made the championship with her teammate and Terri Del Conte was on the other side of the net. Unbeknownst to Haas, Del Conte was UAB’s beach volleyball head coach at the time.

“Afterwards, like the next day, I got an email from her,” Haas said. “We really got along at that tournament. I was telling her, I don't have much film. I don't have all that. But she told me since she got to see me play and even played against me, that our styles are so similar that she really thought that I could make a really good impact for UAB. I really never even got an official visit. I never came on campus before I committed.”

So, out of that tournament, she got a college volleyball home. But did she get a championship with her partner in the tournament?

“She won,” Haas said with a laugh. “Well, I mean, not to make excuses, my partner hurt her back. I didn't even see a serve that game. My poor partner, she got targeted. But Terri was good. I was definitely intimidated when I was playing her.”

Haas flourished quickly at UAB. She was 20-14 in his first year, playing on Court 1 & 2, and earned Conference USA Co-Freshman of the Year. Since then, she has only played on Court 1, compiling a 21-10 record with Arden Copping in 2024 and was 26-7 last season with Olivia Stant as her partner. This season, once again alongside Stant, her roommate and best friend, Haas moved to the top of the career wins chart at UAB with her 71st victory during the Blazers 3-2 upset of 18th ranked Washington on Feb. 27 in the Tiger Beach Challenge in Baton Rouge.

“It meant a lot,” said Haas, who currently has a 76-35 career mark and is 9-4 this season with Stant heading into this weekend’s trip to Florida for the Stetson Invitational. “There's been a lot of hard work put in behind the scenes and just like proving to myself that I can do it growing up being my height. It hasn't been the easiest, even with recruiting process. It's ‘Oh, you're going to have to look at smaller schools, maybe D2.’ But I really set my mind to D1. Just having that pay off and also setting the path for the younger people that are told their height will affect them means so much to me. The work we’ve put in the past four years, it just means so much to help build this program.”

Rose, who came to UAB as an assistant coach just before Haas’ freshman season and was elevated to head coach following the 2023 season, has watched Haas develop into the cornerstone of the program.

“Yeah, I mean Jazzie, she's just really one of a kind is the best way to put it,” Rose said. “She's been our captain for the last two years. She's one of the most liked and well-respected girls on the team. It’s not only her leadership but her work ethic, her performance on and off the court (with) her nursing school demands. I really don't know a lot of people that could do what she could do. The other thing too with someone like Jazzie, who has reached her accolades and has been playing on Court 1 since her freshman year, she is so humble and never satisfied. She’s always coming in and working harder to get better.”

Shortcuts have definitely not been part of her college journey.

“I love the strategy of the game,” Haas said. “I love digging into film. I love watching other people play and finding their strengths, weaknesses, how to beat them, all those things. I think that if you have the right strategy and you understand yourself as a player, you can understand how to beat an opponent. I think that every person has strengths and weaknesses, and if you focus on the right part and how to expose their weakness, they can get in trouble. Also, the mental part of the game, if you are mentally sound, you are going to be the most unstoppable person in beach. I think it’s so cool that any person win on any given day.”

There’s a tireless energy that not only fuels her on the court but also in the classroom, where she is closing in on her nursing degree. She smiles when she says that she will “sleep when she dies” but there is some meaning to it. She is the middle of nursing clinicals, which means there are times when she works a 12-hour night shift, comes home for a short nap before heading to practice.

As for now, the juggling of her time will continue with the demands of the season and a demanding course load. After graduation from nursing school, Haas said she will put beach volleyball to the side to settle into the start of her career. But beach volleyball will never fully leave, Haas said. In a way, it’s part of the family. Her brother played indoor volleyball in college and her younger sister is a talented beach volleyball player. Her parents missed just two of her volleyball matches since she’s been at UAB and that was because her sister had a tournament on the same day.

Volleyball will also be part of her life. She laughed when asked if she will be the 40 or 50-year-old still trying to find a game.

“Absolutely, that's going to be me,” Haas said. “I struggle to sit down. You can't tell that with my schedule?”