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By second grade, Ogonna Nnamani had been hospitalized multiple times for asthma, and her doctor forbade her to play at recess. “I was devastated,” recalls Nnamani, '05.
So when the 8-year-old watched the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the performance of heptathlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who suffered from exercise-induced asthma, was particularly meaningful. Joyner-Kersee won her second gold medal at those games, on her way to becoming one of the most decorated female athletes in Olympics history. “I was so inspired,” Nnamani says. “I felt like a new person.”
Today, Nnamani rockets her 6-foot-1 frame skyward as a fearsome outside hitter on the U.S. volleyball squad. One of the top players in Stanford history—she still holds the career record for kills, with 2,450—Nnamani is best remembered for her achievements in the 2004 NCAA tournament. The Cardinal entered the tournament ranked No. 11 but reached the final against Minnesota on a 14-match win streak. Nnamani blasted the Gophers with 29 kills, including one from the back row that clinched the championship.
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Photos: Manuello Paganelli |
Selected to the U.S. team while still a junior at Stanford, she was the team's youngest player at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. She capped her senior year by winning the Honda-Broderick Cup, as the top collegiate female athlete in the nation.
Nnamani's last name in Igbo—her Nigerian-born parents' native language—translates as “one who knows the land.” She draws inspiration from the triumph of her parents, who left their country to pursue degrees at Illinois State University. “My family is everything for me.”
Growing up in Normal, Ill., Nnamani recalls how she and her sister, Njideka, '07—who also starred on Stanford's volleyball squad—escaped the region's frigid winters and humid, mosquito-infested summers by playing in the family's furnished basement, to the detriment of nearby lamps and glassware.
Nnamani has enjoyed good health for most of her career, but her asthma remains a challenge. While training with the U.S. team in Colorado Springs, Colo., in 2004, she suffered a brutal attack that wouldn't subside. She called Cardinal volleyball team physician R. Elaine Lambert for help. “Dr. Lambert put me on a regimen that immediately started to work. Without her, I wouldn't have had a chance to be on the team,” says Nnamani, who plans to study medicine. She uses an inhaler, takes allergy pills and is extra cautious during seasonal transitions—especially from winter to spring—that can exacerbate her condition. She hasn't considered how Beijing's notoriously polluted air could affect her lungs but notes, “If I'm diligent with my medication, I'll be okay.”
Nnamani served as a reserve player four years ago in Athens. Ranked No. 1 and projected to win the gold medal, the U.S. team lost to China, the Dominican Republic and Russia during pool play and was eliminated by Brazil in the quarterfinals. “It was heartbreaking, for sure. You move on, but you think about it every day,” Nnamani says.
This summer, as one of the U.S. team's top scorers, Nnamani hopes to lead her fourth-ranked squad to the podium for the first time since 1992, when the United States snared a bronze. The team to beat: China.
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