by Evan Craig
If there is anyone to credit for getting Ogonna Nnamani into volleyball, the 7th-grade coach during her time at Thomas Metcalf School would be the one to thank.
Early in her athletic career, Nnamani was in love with basketball. However, the coach persisted until Nnamani finally agreed to try out. Fortunately for University High School, Nnamani found her way to volleyball, a godsend for the program.
Often considered one of the greatest athletes to ever grace the Land of Lincoln, Nnamani guided U-High to four state finals, winning back-to-back championships during her junior and senior seasons in 1999 and 2000 under then-head coach Charlene Lehnen.
Being able to win two championships despite the crowded pool of talented teams across Illinois was a testament to the “really special teams” that Nnamani was a part of.
“We were lucky we had talent from all over Central Illinois. We had the best athletes coming in to U-High. Fortunately from all the junior highs in our community and we just had a really talented team. I was just a small part of that team. They felt like I felt like the team was a well run machine. We really disciplined and we were really hard working and determined.”
After helping lead U-High to a 41-1 mark as a senior, Nnamani won Gatorade National Player of the Year, an award that is given annually to up and coming student-athletes across the United States.
The winning and accolades did not stop once Nnamani graduated U-High. She earned the Honda-Broderick Cup in 2004 as the nation’s top female athlete across all NCAA sports, and even added a pair of national championships to her mantle at Stanford University. Nnamani attributes her success at the institution to her “Midwestern work ethic.”
“I didn’t really appreciate it until I left the Midwest and now I understand why people always say that the Midwestern work ethic, the sense of community, taking pride in your work, those are all things that I really took for granted,” Nnamani said. “But those are core principles that you learn as a Midwesterner -- maybe from its farmers roots -- that people just really know how to roll up their sleeves and work hard.”
“So again, those basic ideals I carried with me for the rest of my career, and at Stanford, and now in the training in my residency and then before in medical school, just those things that you learn when you’re young, they never leave you,” Nnamani continued.
During her Stanford career, Nnamani became the second woman to ever make the U.S. National Team for an Olympic Games while still in college. She played for the National Team from 2002-11, and won silver at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Nnamani expressed gratitude for having an “incredible teammate” like International Volleyball Hall of Fame member and current Israel women’s national volleyball team head coach Logan Tom, to show her what was possible as she navigated going to college and playing for Team USA.
“I remember my mom rushing to drop me off at the airport to go join the USA National Team in Switzerland at 17 years old, and those kind of experiences really shape your career in a way that you see what it’s like to compete at a high level,” Nnamani said. “You know what the pie in the sky goal is because you were there to see all those great players and then you come back and you just work really hard to get there.”
Nnamani was inducted into the Stanford University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2015, joining a prestigious and diverse list of school icons like Kerri Walsh Jennings, Tara VanDerveer, John Elway, Ernie Nevers and Christen Press.
She was initially left in disbelief over the news, but was “really grateful” nonetheless for her time with the Cardinal.
“Stanford volleyball is a storied program with incredible athletes that came before me, and to be selected to be a member of the Hall of Fame is still something that I still don’t believe happened, but I guess it did,” Nnamani said.
The common denominator of everything Nnamani has accomplished are all the people that have impacted her life along the way. Everyone from Nnamani’s parents, to her husband and former Stanford football player Mike Silva, have helped her “dream(s) come true.”
“When you get calls like that to say you’re a member of the Hall of Fame, you really think back and reminisce, and you just become really grateful and thankful for all the wonderful people in your life,” Nnamani said.
Currently, Nnamani is in the fourth year of her residency at Harvard Medical School, where she is specializing in plastic and reconstructive surgery.
The medical training is undoubtedly challenging and the hours are long, but according to Nnamani, the opportunity to take care of patients at their most vulnerable makes everything worth it.
“My athletic background has prepared me well for this moment, and so the things that I’ve learned as an athlete are single-handedly the most important things that I use day in and day out,” Nnamani said. “To be a resident here, you have to commit a lot of hours to the job, but I take so much pride in my work.”
Nnamani’s “Midwestern work ethic” has gotten her exceptionally far in life, and it should continue to serve her well as she progresses further into her next chapter as a medical professional.
This story is a part of the IHSA celebration of the first 50 years of the IHSA Girls Volleyball State Series. Click here for more on the Top 50 programs during the first 50 years.