Volleyball should be for all.
It is a mantra Nicky Nieves has lived the majority of her life.
Nieves has been playing volleyball since the 6th grade and now spends her time paying back the sport she loves by providing opportunities for others to enjoy it.
On Wednesday, Nieves was afforded an opportunity that she will remember for the rest of her life. Nieves and Steve Serio represented Team USA as Opening Ceremony flag bearers for the Paralympic Games in Paris.
The honor stemmed from a vote by fellow Team USA athletes, including nominating teammate Katie Holloway Bridge.
"We nominated Nicky because she's spent countless hours on boards, in training and working to improve Paralympic sport for the next generation of athletes," Holloway Bridge said in a United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee press release. "Nicky's energy is electric on the court, but her impact reaches so far beyond that. Her work as an advocate has advanced not only the sport of sitting volleyball but the entire Paralympic Movement."
A former Division II standout at Queens (New York), Nieves is set for her second Paralympic Games after winning gold with Team USA's sitting volleyball squad in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Team USA opens preliminary-round action against China on Friday at 1 a.m. Eastern time.
Nieves poses in a white blazer with fellow Team USA members after being named one of two Opening Ceremony flag bearers for the Paralympic Games in Paris. (Photo courtesy of Joe Scarnici / Getty Images for USOPC)
As noted by her teammates, Nieves has been one of the sport's strongest advocates in the mental health and disability space.
In 2018, she founded a nonprofit called Limitless People, which provides sitting and standing volleyball opportunities to all, without limits to age, gender, race or physical ability.
"We've tried to go out and spread (our love for the sport)," Nieves said. "It's literally doing volleyball camps and clinics, both sitting and standing, because maybe you need more touches, maybe you need to learn how to play volleyball, or maybe you need to be seen by somebody. It's just giving more opportunity back and paying it forward, really."
Nieves also spends summers teaching volleyball at NubAbility Athletics, a camp for kids 5 to 18 with limb differences.
According to her Team USA bio, Nieves was born without a left hand and has never found out exactly why, but doctors have said her umbilical cord might have wrapped around her hand.
While competing in standing volleyball at Queens, Nieves says she met some of her best friends, but she was often uncomfortable with both her identity and times when media outlets were simply looking to speak to the "one-handed volleyball player."
"I didn't like showing my hands," she recalls. "It wasn't something that I was just outward about."
Nieves even went as far as declining some interviews, citing how overwhelming and exhausting it was to be asked the same questions over again. But by saying yes to some, Nieves now has perspective that her participation helped fuel her professional career of representing the underrepresented.
"If (reporters) came, I didn't want to talk to them. I just want to be seen as an athlete and not the one-handed girl that happens to play volleyball," she said. "But now, I'm super thankful for it because it pushed me out there and started that, 'Hey, if you want to be the representation, if you're thinking that you want to be this person that people can look forward to, this is what's going to start it.'"
When not competing for Team USA, Nieves operates a nonprofit she founded called Limitless People, which provides sitting and standing volleyball opportunities to all individuals. (Photo courtesy of Getty Images for USOPC)
It was also during her time at Queens that Nieves learned about sitting volleyball after her athletic director was contacted by USA Volleyball. As it turned out, entering parasport proved to be an opportunity for Nieves to continue her growth on and off the court.
"I finally found a group of people that were like me, that had some of the same struggles as me, that could relate in terms of lifestyle, and things like dating as a one-handed girl or being stared at," she said. "I was like, 'Oh my God, I can find my people when I'm having bad days … and they were just so unashamed, unabashed of prosthetics and their arms."
Nieves also found comfort in working with a sports psychologist, noting that even during her highest of highs, she was experiencing lows.
"Initially, it was really scary telling her stuff," Nieves said. "But when I was in Rio, we won the gold medal and I was so happy, but just mentally and body image wise, I was not in a good place. Once I got with (my therapist) and worked with her for a few years, I thought, 'Wow, people care about your journey and about you getting better. So since then, I was like, 'I really like this, and I like helping people, so why not just go into therapy, too?"
While Nieves, who later earned her bachelor's degree in sociology at Florida International University, is focused on nothing but gold in Paris, she will return from the Paralympics committed to pursuing a master's degree in clinical mental health at Southern New Hampshire and serving others and the sport that has given her everything.
"I know that I was super fortunate to have parents that were able to provide for me financially to play club, and they paid a pretty penny for it. And right now, there's some families that can't even afford to do that," she said. "But I know that I'm where I'm at because of the resources that I have. So in my brain, I'm like, 'What would somebody else become if they have like 1-2% of the resources I had?"
But for Nieves, sometimes it's as simple as someone showing interest in learning more about the sport she loves dearly for yet another opportunity to arise.
"If I can provide it, I will."
