Noami Santos-Lamb steps onto the court of the O’Connell Center with all the confidence in the world.
Wearing her blue shorts and No. 17 jersey, she’s ready to make a statement. Three of Florida’s top four point scorers are no longer on the roster. Noami strives to fill the void.
She knows the system, the plays, the expectations.
It’s Aug. 18, 2012 — Florida’s fan day and a preseason scrimmage less than a week before the season opener — and Noami participates in a routine hitting drill. Florida calls it "Blue."
Noami gets into position in the back row, about 15 feet away from the net, and waits as the play develops. A teammate digs the ball into the air, passing it to the setter. Noami waits.
Once the ball leaves the setter’s hands, it’s go time.
Noami leaps up in front of 2,500 fans and launches a ball over the net, a sneak attack meant to catch the opposition off guard.
When she hits the floor, she grips her knee in pain.
Trainer Randall Vereb runs to check on Florida’s up-and-coming outside hitter. Noami stops her.
"Don’t touch it," Noami says. "It’s broken."
• • •
In an instant, Noami went from the precipice of a starting job on one of the top collegiate volleyball teams in the country to seeing her career slip away. Everything she had built up slowly began to crumble. In the blink of an eye, Noami realized her athletic career wouldn’t last forever.
That day, Noami tore the ACL in her left knee, ending her sophomore season before it could even begin.
Three years and a second knee surgery later, she gave up playing the sport completely.
"It’s the downside of college athletics when injuries are part of it," UF volleyball coach Mary Wise said. "Noami is not the first player — I would love her to be the last player — whose career ended sooner than it was supposed to by an injury."
Despite one more year of collegiate eligibility and a determination to keep playing, the student-athlete opted to become just a student.
"I realized I needed to prioritize something that’s never going to be taken away from me," she said. "Your education, it’s something that you can never be stripped of."
• • •
For more than a year after the 2012 injury, Noami could only watch as her team continued to play and her knee continued to heal.
The ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), one of four major knee ligaments, is responsible for preventing the shin bone from sliding in front of the thigh bone.
If not treated correctly, an ACL tear can lead to additional cartilage damage and arthritis.
Average recovery time following surgery is about six to 12 months.
"We know that they can come back inside a year," Wise said, "but they’re not really back."
Noami worked daily with Vereb to regain strength in her knee. Every day, she walked into the training room, a different task waiting for her.
"I did everything my body allowed me to do," Noami said.
Six months after the surgery, Noami returned to practice in a limited fashion. She slowly added drills back to her repertoire. But her game, like her knee, was damaged.
In addition to her big smile, curly brown hair and powerful arm swing, Noami now sported a hefty brace on her left knee. Her mobility was limited. Her jumps had less power. And her chance at a starting role never resurfaced.
"Once a decision’s made, there’s nothing you can do to reverse that," Noami said. "Things are out of your hand. … Somebody makes that decision, and you have to take it, put up and shut up, and support your teammates."
• • •
To Noami, it still feels like yesterday when she picked up a volleyball for the first time.
But she didn’t limit herself to just the one sport.
A spirited 4-year-old growing up in Carolina, Puerto Rico, Noami tried just about every sport put in front of her.
Track. Basketball. Gymnastics. She crossed paths with all of them at one point or another.
"I just had a lot of energy," Noami said, "and my parents just tried to find a way to channel that energy into something productive."
As she grew up, volleyball stood out above the rest, and the accolades rolled in throughout her prep career.
A spot on Puerto Rico’s roster at the 2010 FIVB World Championship.
A place on prepvolleyball.com’s list of senior aces, a group of the top 250 high school volleyball players.
And, eventually, an offer to play volleyball at the University of Florida, a perennial powerhouse at the collegiate level under Wise.
"It was really eye-opening to see that you can make a professional career out of volleyball," Noami said. "It’s not just something that can just get you into school or something that you do for fun."
But Noami’s affinity with UF superceded athletics.
On her first trip to UF during her senior year in high school, Noami walked past the Fine Arts building and instantly fell in love. The school’s rich volleyball tradition was great, but the opportunity to get a top-notch education sealed the deal.
"I didn’t even need anything else," Noami said. "It wasn’t even the sports aspect of it for me. It was like, ‘I can get a great education here.’"
• • •
Noami moved to Gainesville alone, a freshman almost 2,000 miles away from home.
But the then-17-year-old quickly found a family in 14 sisters on UF’s volleyball team who helped her through everything.
"When you get here as a freshman as a normal student, if you don’t know anybody who came into it with you from high school, you literally have no friends," Noami said. "When you come in as an athlete, you come in with people who will ride or die for you."
Chloe Mann, then a redshirt sophomore middle blocker, was one of her biggest supporters. Playing together established the connection. A shared love for dry humor, television and food kept the relationship going long after Mann left UF.
"If either one of us is upset, we’ll just be like ‘Do you want to go to McDonald’s?’ That’ll just brighten our mood," Mann said. "We just knew each other on that level, and I feel like that’s what kept the relationship light and fun and easygoing."
Four-and-a-half years later and 9,500 miles apart — Noami in Gainesville continuing her education; Chloe in Thailand continuing her professional volleyball career — the two are still close, and the conversations remain extensive.
They text daily and talk on FaceTime a couple times a week. They reminisce over memories of playing together. They catch up on the FX series "Sons of Anarchy," a show the two started watching on Netflix a couple months ago.
"Our bond just couldn’t be broken," Mann said.
• • •
When Florida’s 2011 season opener against Boston College came around, Noami didn’t know what to expect.
Even after months of practice, it all still felt like a blur. Her nerves were a wreck. Would she perform up to expectations? Would she remember the formations?
With the Gators holding a commanding lead in the second set, Noami received her first chance to prove herself. She checked in for senior Stephanie Ferrell, her first taste of collegiate game action about to ensue.
"It’s just eye-opening to say ‘Finally, it’s here,’" she said.
She stayed on the court for the final 10 plays of the set, recording two attacking errors and a service error, three points for the opposition.
It wasn’t the start she wanted, but as the season progressed, so did Noami.
Her attacking technique became more crisp. Her serve, which reached speeds up to 60 miles per hour, became more refined. Her confidence soared each time she checked in.
"Noami was definitely one to break your fingers if you’re blocking her," Mann said. "She’s really powerful, and she’s a really gritty player."
But with two seniors ahead of her on the depth chart, Noami spent the majority of her freshman year on the bench. In total, she played in just 20 of UF’s 117 sets, recording 11 kills, three blocks and a service ace.
With Kristy Jaeckel, Ferrell and four-time All-American right-side hitter Kelly Murphy on their way out after the 2011 season, Noami was ready to seize a starting job.
"She had nailed down that position," Wise said. "We were going to ride that arm all season."
But the week before the 2012 season opener, the opportunity vanished when her knee buckled under her at that preseason scrimmage during a drill she practiced thousands of times in her life.
"When that happened before the very first match, it took the wind out of us," Wise said. "We had no idea. The very next weekend, we were drawing lineups up on a napkin trying to figure it out."
The Gators continued playing without Noami. They still had a season to play, a Southeastern Conference title to defend.
When Noami was cleared to play in 2013, she was back near the bottom of the depth chart, behind two players yet again.
Over the next two seasons, Noami would play 27 more matches before reinjuring her knee last season — a consequence of trying to get back on the court too quickly.
After undergoing a second surgery in January to clear out cartilage, her doctor gave her an ultimatum: She could play her senior year and risk undergoing a third knee surgery or hang up the jersey and preserve her knee.
Noami chose the latter, effectively ending her playing career.
"She was certainly the fun-loving player," Wise said, "but that injury just wore her down. … It was an easy decision."
• • •
Standing behind the service line in the Oak Hall School Gymnasium, Noami blasts a volleyball over the net.
She still has it.
It’s serve-receive time at volleyball practice and Noami, the head coach of the girls junior varsity team, is taking a hands-on approach with her coaching style.
She’s not playing anymore, but her time on the court is still fresh in her mind.
Noami’s athletic career is over, but Wise said she has insight others her age lack. She had learned how to bounce back. From bad matches. From injury. From adversity.
"It’s not all a smooth ride, and if anyone would know that, that would be Noami," Wise said. "Enjoy and embrace the opportunity because you never know when it could be taken away."
It’s been almost a year since Noami stopped playing the sport she grew up mastering.
She doesn’t miss it.
The hours of practice, the grueling workouts, playing under the lights of the O’Connell Center, none of it.
"It sucks I can’t play anymore, but now I can teach," Noami said.
And she can still take time to learn, too. Noami graduates from UF this month, earning her Bachelor’s degree in advertising. She’ll be the first in her family to walk across the stage and receive her diploma. She applied to grad school at UF, looking to extend her education and ultimately pursue a career in tourism.
"The volleyball piece might not have been written the way she or I or anybody else wanted, but boy her academic one is going to be written," Wise said, "and she’s going to benefit from that long after her volleyball career would have ended either way."
It’s been a long road. To Noami, everything worked out for the best.
"It was fantastic to know that I had that backfall, that I do have that education," Noami said. "I do have a fantastic education. And I did that through sports."
Follow Jordan McPherson on Twitter @J_McPherson1126
Noami Santos-Lamb swings for a kill attempt during Florida's 3-2 win against Oklahoma on Aug. 30, 2014, in the O'Connell Center.
