Episode 30 of the Chi State Pod features Nakeyta Clair, graduate assistant coach for the Chicago State volleyball team.
Even as her eyes scanned the life-changing words on the letter, Nakeyta Clair didn’t quite trust them.
“It was unbelievable for me,” Clair said. “I was shocked. It’s hard for me to believe things until they’re done.
“I was like, ‘I know people are looking at me, but I haven’t been offered any scholarships yet.’”
At the time, Clair was a volleyball phenom at Rich Central High School in Olympia Fields, Illinois and garnering interest from Division I colleges nationwide.
After a few major offers had rolled in, it was Christmastime, and Santa came calling.
“Ole Miss asked me to be their Christmas present,” Clair said.
The star middle blocker acted decisively and moved to Oxford to join the SEC powerhouse Rebels, rapidly exploding onto the national scene.
As a freshman, she earned All-SEC Freshman honors — even though she felt she wasn’t even close to reaching her potential.
“I felt like I barely made it,” Clair said. “I still dealt with confidence. I was mentally struggling, but I made the SEC team. That’s what made me realize that I had to give myself more credit. I was still managing, and I didn’t know how.”
By her junior season, Clair was an All-American, just the second in Ole Miss history.
“I became Nakeyta Clair,” she said. “I said, ‘I must be kind of good.’ I became more confident.”
For someone who didn’t pick up volleyball until eighth grade, hurdling over confidence deficiencies had been a battle for years.
“Talent wasn’t what I struggled with,” Clair said. “It was me, believing in me. I dealt with that in high school. Sometimes, you don’t believe and are like, ‘How did I get here?’”
Once she believed, she scorched her SEC opponents. And when Clair left Oxford, Mississippi a year later, she had blazed new school career and single-season records for total blocks, block assists and block solos.
Clair then relocated her volleyball career to Halmstad, Sweden, about 45 minutes from the border with Denmark.
“The only way I could play volleyball again was overseas,” Clair said. “But I had to live there. … I knew it was an opportunity, and I never want to look back and be like, ‘I should have tried that.’ So I took the opportunity.”
But the move came with a major shift.
“Sweden doesn’t have a lot of diversity,” Clair said. “There is a lot of blondes and blue eyes — everywhere. That was kind of hard for me at first. I was like, ‘They have to know I’m here for a reason.’ So I would go places, and they would be like, ‘What sport do you play?'
“I never felt disrespected, but a lot of that has to do with being an athlete, because I would get that question a lot in the South, too. I didn’t experience a lot of discrimination, but I blame that on athletics. It’s another type of halo.”
Clair remained in Sweden for only one year before returning stateside to join her old Ole Miss program as an assistant coach. She then returned to her hometown to join Chicago State’s volleyball program as a graduate assistant manager while pursuing a Master of Science in Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Administration.
