Everyone who follows sports even a little bit has an understanding of the player that falls in your lap and makes you better overnight.
Everyone who follows sports even a little bit has an understanding of the player that falls in your lap and makes you better overnight.
Tommy Lasorda was doing a favor for a friend when he got the Dodgers to draft Mike Piazza in the 62nd round with selection number 1,390 and you can say what you will about the New England Patriots depth of knowledge in the draft, but if they knew what Tom Brady was going to turn out to be they would have never waited until the sixth round and 199th selection to take the former Michigan quarterback.
Nothing here attempts to draw a line connecting the Hawaii-Hilo athletic department with anything having to do with good fortune in a professional draft because the Vulcans’ newest volleyball player wasn’t recruited by coach Tino Reyes. She didn’t even get a phone call, it was the other way around.
This is a classic example, maybe an ultimate example of a highly recruited player who has fallen through the cracks and landed in Hilo.
Haylee Roberts, a sophomore in eligibility, is 6-foot-2 outside hitter who was one of a cluster of the top recruits nationally in 2013 for Oregon, which had reached that national finals the previous season, losing to Texas.
“She wasn’t just a good player,” said Reyes, “she was one of those in that top echelon, that circle or whatever you want to call it; she could have gone anywhere, that’s the kind of recruit she was.”
As of last week, when she was finally able to see a neurologist to clear her medically to play — she has been enrolled in school since the start of fall session — Roberts put on a uniform and played with her new teammates Thursday, hours after she was cleared. The assignment was difficult, nationally ranked Concordia with a full budget for scholarships, a wealth of coaching talent including former all-America players, Olympic and national champions, and oh yes, nine players 6-feet tall or taller.
After a tentative start, Roberts was in the middle of a late surge that lifted the Vulcans from an 0-2 start to a 13-11 lead in the final game that finally went to Concordia.
Had that match been a week later, Concordia might have had its island trip ruined, but no one could have predicted Roberts would be playing for UH-Hilo, and that includes Roberts herself. It was a long and winding road to the Big Island.
Saturday night, she had 13 kills and a .400 attack percentage to complement senior Marley Strand-Nicolaisen’s 14 kills and .294 percentage in a three-set sweep of Fresno Pacific. It’s been a long way from a concussion in Eugene, Ore., that sent her career in a tailspin.
Not long after starting at Oregon, she banged her head on a concrete floor during a conditioning exercise that left her with a bad concussion and some unsatisfactory advice from physicians.
She explained on a blog, “At the age of 17, I was on the highest dosage of antidepressants an adult can be on. I quickly became suicidal. I was having three to four panic attacks a day and was unable to communicate normally or even remember how to get to places I had been to dozens of times before. My last day of practice at UO I collapsed on the floor in the most severe panic attack I have ever experienced. I left that day and never looked back.”
As you might guess, there’s more to the story. She started over at Fresno State in 2014 and experienced more concussions. She dropped out, was told she should not play volleyball again and then took the time to fully recover, the final step being the neurologist in Hilo last week.
Roberts had her last concussion-related symptoms in February, then a hormonal issue that caused a rapid weight gain that took a few months to resolve. She wanted to play, but where? When?
She got a phone call one day this summer from a close friend in Bakersfield, Shelly Blunck, who had been Roberts’ first volleyball coach when she was nine years of age.
“She didn’t even know I wanted to play,” Roberts said of that call, “but there I was, and my friend through all this was telling me they were going to Hawaii to this school in Hilo and she heard they might have a spot on the team if I wanted to turn out. It was, ‘Whoa, what? Really?’ It sounded great.”
Shelly Blunck has coached club volleyball for 20 years, off an on, and her husband Russ had just accepted the job at UH-Hilo as sports information director.
“Fall in your lap?” said Reyes, “I guess so, I know it has to be considered extreme luck to get a new sports information director and he brings along a national-level player.
“Sometimes when Division I talent comes into Division II, you get people with an attitude that can be a bad mix, like they don’t belong at this level,” he said, “but that’s not Haylee. She has been supportive of everyone, accepting of her situation, it’s been great to have her.
“Sometimes you can tell about a kid’s background a little,” he said. “I can tell, she had great parents.”
Roberts gives the Vulcans a new dimension that is freeing up senior outside hitter Strand-Nicolaisen, the driving wheel on the squad in her final season at the school. She welcomed Roberts without reservation.
“I think it’s great for her and it’s great for us to get her firepower on the team,” Strand-Nicolaisen said. “She fits in, she’s supportive, encouraging, I just wish she could have been here sooner.”
At 21, Roberts has two more years of eligibility after this season, and she has no plans to go elsewhere.
“I’m just so happy to be healthy and to be here and to be playing again,”she said, “it was something I had to do, I wanted to have a college career and there’s this 9-year-old girl inside of me that I feel I need to play for; that little girl would be very disappointed if she knew I had a chance to play and I didn’t do it.”
Like the new person in the neighborhood, the new kid who moved into your high school class, it can be awkward, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with the Vulcans’ volleyball team.
“I’m stepping into their territory in a sense,” she said, “so I just want to be a part of this, I just want to play. I’m not a great athlete by any stretch, I’m not fast, I can’t jump out of the gym, but I know where to put the ball and I just want that to be part of me again.”
She fell, recovered then found a welcome spot where she and her new ohana can stand up together. It feels like this story is just getting started.