Photo by Katie White, courtesy of Mizzou Athletics
Colleen Finney is home for the afternoon. Though she’s equally comfortable in athletic wear, business attire or tiaras, today she’s in a green-trimmed pink V-neck sweater. A portrait of a gray castle with green turrets and pink flags hangs over her shoulder.
The painting is a memento from Finney’s bedroom in her childhood home in South Carolina. Back then, it represented the usual trappings of magic and wonder and whimsy that appeal to children. But now, as a woman with a master’s of science in business, a volleyball legacy at the University of Missouri, and her very own crown — it represents something more.
“Outside looking in, you think it’s a fairytale life, you think everything is perfect, when that’s not always the case. The castle itself is gray, but it’s surrounded by beautiful pinks and greens,” Finney explained. “There’s a lot of duality with understanding that life is not always perfect, but it’s also not always rock bottom. There’s structure in between.”
Finney brought the painting back to her current home in Columbia, Missouri, after a recent visit to South Carolina. The castle seemed appropriate as she returns to a path that she had once traveled as a child. A path to becoming royalty.
Finney competed in pageants in her youth, but as she watched her older sister place in the top 15 for Miss South Carolina Teen, her own height and insecurities left her feeling like she didn’t belong in that world.
“I was very insecure in my own skin, and I genuinely believed that I would never be able to do something like that because I didn’t feel beautiful,” Finney said. “I definitely didn’t feel as smart as my sister or any of the women that she competed with.”
Those same insecurities led Finney to give up another activity: soccer. Her mother intervened.
“My mom had seen beautiful, tall women play volleyball and thought it would be good for me, and she was right,” Finney said. “Because not only did I grow and develop athletically, but I was able to develop in so many other areas, like leadership, discipline and perseverance.”
She followed her family legacy and a life-long dream to Clemson, where she played volleyball and completed an undergraduate degree in philosophy. But she found herself wanting something more. She wanted to carve her own path. A path that only existed on the other side of the transfer portal.
From Columbia, South Carolina to Columbia, Missouri
As Finney began considering her options, she first turned her attention to larger cities like Los Angeles or Miami. But she worried that she’d be giving up the things that she loved most about her home in South Carolina.
“I really enjoyed the Midwest because it reminded me of my Southern upbringing, that good old Southern hospitality,” she said. “I was scared I wouldn’t have that Southern charm somewhere else.”
So she created a path for herself to Mizzou.
“Mizzou checked off every single box I was looking for. I was a little older, so my priorities had shifted. I could get the master’s degree that I wanted. They had a ton of affinity programs. The alumni connection was huge,” she said. “Then I found out Homecoming was started here.”
So Finney set on a 13-hour drive from her childhood home in Columbia, South Carolina, to her new home in Columbia, Missouri. It was the farthest she’d ever driven from home on her own. And on that first night, she felt every bit of the distance between the two cities.
“I’ll never forget the first night I spent here, I was like, ‘Man, did I make a bad decision? What am I really doing?’ And the next day we had a team event — a Taco Tuesday night. I felt like, ‘Ok, I’m tripping a little bit. I need to calm down. Everything’s going to be ok,’” Finney said. “And it turned out that the little City of Columbia, Missouri, was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I’ve never felt so connected to a place in my entire life and never felt so supported by a community.”
Finney’s master’s of science in business offered her access to a unique combination of classes through Mizzou’s Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business, Mizzou’s School of Law, and the Missouri School of Journalism, allowing her to build real-world skills in entrepreneurship, digital storytelling, brand building and more.
Finney also found herself back on the volleyball court, where she earned a spot as third in Missouri history for hitting percentage. Playing volleyball at Mizzou proved to be another powerful experience in this sports-loving town. Finney still remembers facing Florida in front of a crowd of 8,000.
“We lost in five sets, but I will never forget that because I’d never played in a home environment like that in my life,” Finney said.
After earning her master’s from Mizzou in 2024, Finney followed her love of volleyball to Greece, where she played professionally, before returning to Columbia, Missouri. She accepted a position as an NIL coordinator for Every True Tiger, where she uses her Trulaske training and athletics background to help other student athletes connect with businesses, while also ensuring students are able to maintain their NCAA compliance.
Based on her own experiences as a professional volleyball player, Finney hopes to help student athletes engage with the community and to avoid letting college sports become purely transactional.
“I want them to be businessmen and businesswomen thinking of themselves as a brand,” she said. “I want them to be able to say Mizzou helped them to be a better person after this experience is over.”
‘Play Her Potential’
While her professional volleyball career in Greece didn’t turn out as she had expected, the experience left her reflecting on her time as a young athlete — and her time in the pageant world.
Back in her new hometown and armed with a deeper sense of self, Finney decided it was time to return to that path she had once left behind, quietly applying to compete for Miss Boone County. Finney won the title, an honor that meant so much from the community that’s become her home.
“I went in there and did something that I hadn’t done in years, and I was able to accomplish it because of the foundation that sports and my education gave me,” she said. “Back then, when I was doing pageants, it was to be chosen. It was to be picked. Now I am a confident woman, and I know what I want next out of the world. I believe in myself. I do think I’m beautiful. I do think I’m capable.”
Though Finney is the picture of poise, there were moments of self-doubt along the way.
“There was a little part of me feeling like that little girl that left the pageant world,” Finney said. “Why am I doing this? People know me as the volleyball player. I need to stay in this one little box. And then I came home after a tough day at work. I sat in my bed and thought, ‘I’m going to regret this the rest of my life if I don’t get myself together and do this.’ Sometimes when you’re going through that funk, you just have to get things done.”
As she prepares to compete for Miss Missouri, Finney is reaching back to help other little girls stay in the game. Finney’s platform, Play Her Potential, is aimed at keeping girls between the ages of 5-14 active in sports.
“That’s the highest dropout window, and they drop out because of lack of confidence, lack of mentorship and lack of accessibility,” Finney said. “My community service engagement aims to mitigate all three of those areas through my outreach efforts and the partnerships I’m helping to build.”
How society treats women in sports is an indicator of how society treats women in general, Finney said. Opening doors for women in the world of athletics helps build skills like leadership and perseverance, which also opens other doors for women — like the doors to C-Suites and even the Oval Office.
Finney credits the entrepreneurial mindset she developed at Trulaske as preparing her to pursue sponsorships for her pageant bid and partnerships for her community service initiative.
“My degree from Mizzou helped me so much, especially with thinking business minded,” Finney said. “I want people to look at me and think, ‘Yes, that’s a boss. She’s working to do things that are not only really, really cool, but also very authentic to her own story.’”
Finney hopes her path will lead to Miss Missouri, which would give her an even broader platform to boost the Show Me State as a leader in women’s sports. But whatever happens the day after the coveted Miss Missouri crown is awarded, Finney will keep building her castle in the sky.
“When I get really fired up to achieve something, it would take the whole world to stop me.”
Mizzou’s Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business prepares students for success as global citizens, business leaders, scholars, innovators and entrepreneurs by providing access to transformative technologies, offering experience-centered learning opportunities and fostering an entrepreneurial mindset.