It’s not uncommon for Duke students to work hard to balance their health, their social lives and their academics.
But for Nailah Waterfield, there’s another juggling ball to be kept in the air: varsity volleyball. Waterfield makes a concerted effort to be defined by more than just her athletic career, though, staying active around campus and taking advantage of an opportunity to spend six weeks studying abroad in Ghana this summer.
On the volleyball court, the 5-foot-3 junior from Long Beach, Calif. is a defense specialist/libero, but her off-court resume might be even more impressive: She is a Baldwin Scholar, a student worker in the athletics department and a volunteer at the Central Regional Hospital.
Waterfield has a full plate, especially for a student-athlete, but that didn’t stop her from taking part in the six-week Duke in Ghana study program this past summer.
“I think that part of the stereotypes with being a student-athlete is maybe we don’t know about a lot of options that Duke has to offer, and people think a lot of the time that we can be exclusive... because we spend a lot of time with our team,” she said. “A lot of people think we don’t want to go abroad or we don’t want to leave our teammates, and even a couple of my friends on different teams said, ‘You’re going to Ghana? You don’t know anyone with you!’
“It takes you out of your comfort zone, and people know that.”
Waterfield, who is pursuing a double-major in Psychology and African/African-American Studies, as well as a Markets and Management Studies Certificate, decided to go abroad to get acquainted with a very different culture.
“I think that going abroad is really important for the Duke experience, and a lot of students get to do it, but not all athletes get to go,” she said. “We can’t go abroad during the year because varsity athletics is a year-round commitment, but it’s great that Duke has these summer abroad options.”
She decided to pursue the chance to study in Africa after hearing about how irreplaceable the international experience was from friends who had gone the year before.
“Africa was definitely always a place I wanted to be,” she said, “so it wasn’t really a hard decision for me at all.”
The difficulties of planning the trip around academics and athletics turned out to be quite easy compared to the challenges of actually touching down on a different continent.
“In the beginning, it was very difficult for me to not be able to exercise the way I was used to, and the food we were eating really got to me, so I kind of had to regroup and to remember that my coaches wanted me to have this experience,” Waterfield said. “I had to remember that I would be back second session and that I would get to where I needed to be once season started, so I needed to let go of my stress.”
But her six weeks in Ghana proved to be more than worth it, as she brought back a strengthened mental game to the volleyball court.
“Being in Ghana and Togo, and not always being able to come home, and spending a lot of time away from the people I’m used to, I definitely learned about how valuable certain experiences are in life and how lucky we are to really have the opportunities we have at Duke,” Waterfield said. “It made me really think about how blessed I really am, in that not only was I so happy and so lucky to be out here, but what it really means to be a U.S. citizen and the things you take for granted, like how we’re at Duke and how we’re student-athletes, and it’s an experience not like any other.
“We have amazing chances to leave a legacy at the school... and to not let any opportunities pass [us] by.”
The two-year veteran’s mentality is sure to be key in the coming season, as her team faces very high expectations after a deep run in last year’s NCAA Tournament. The Blue Devils topped the preseason ACC coaches’ poll this season, and are looking to make their seventh straight run to the NCAA tournament.
As the squad seeks to live up to such lofty predictions, Waterfield will be providing fans with a unique behind-the-scenes perspective. Prompted by positive feedback from the blog she kept during her time abroad, Waterfield will be keeping a running blog for the Duke Volleyball team this season on GoDuke.com.
“I had never written before and had never really been interested in something like that, but I was really inspired by how many people loved how I was writing and what I was writing,” she said. “Our leader [in Ghana] was really like, ‘You need to pursue this and do something else with this,’ so I thought about how Duke volleyball is on the up-and-up, and our team is so close and we relate very well to our fans, so I wanted to find a way to reach out to our fans about who we are as a team, what we do and our experience.”
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