Sports odds and ends by Charles Hallman
There are approximately 100 African American and other student-athletes of color this school year at the University of Minnesota. In an occasional series throughout the school year and sports year, the MSR will highlight many of these players. This week: Minnesota sophomore middle blocker Calissa Minatee.
Calissa Minatee this season is more in the middle than a year ago. The 6’1” sophomore from Kansas City, Missouri is a starter for the Minnesota Golden Gophers volleyball team this fall.
“Yeah, I think I definitely understand what my role is on this team a little bit better or a lot better this year,” said Minatee earlier this season. Her freshman season was Minnesota Coach Keenan Cook’s first as well.
Minatee twice this season posted a career-best 11 kills (against Wisconsin September 25, and October 4 at UCLA). Against Indiana, Minatee was part of a balanced Minnesota attack with eight kills.
She credits this to “just knowing what’s going on, and so that kind of transfers into your game in terms of confidence and everything.”
Whenever you watch Minatee in action on the court, her enthusiasm is infectious, especially when she successfully executes a kill or a block. “Awesome” is how she describes that action, “especially knowing that we worked hard at a lot of areas and within our middle offense in general.”
Originally planning to major in architecture at Minnesota, Minatee soon found out “it would have been really tough” to pursue that as well as play volleyball. “I bet it would have been 10 times harder to get used to balancing it and everything.”
Instead, her business marketing major “can be applied to multiple things,” said Minatee. “I know I want to stay in the sports world. I’m not quite sure what that leads to, what that looks like.”
Her game is still evolving, which is naturally expected for a second-year college player. Minatee says she must improve her slide hitting skill “and just learning my teammates and learning what gets me going, and sharing my vision of the game, and improving my vision of the game.”
“There’s of course some room for growth and everything as there always is within the game or anything you want to pursue in life,” concluded Minatee. “I just know where that growth needs to happen.”
After a two-match East Coast road trip (Rutgers and Penn State), Minnesota is back in action at home at Maturi Pavilion Wednesday, October 23, 8 p.m.
More Gopher firsts
Minatee’s teammate, redshirt senior middle blocker Phoebe Awoleye, was named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week earlier this month. The Marietta, Ga. native had 24 blocks in sweeps over Indiana and Maryland, and tied a program match record with 14 blocks in three sets against the Terrapins, which set a Gopher school record for most blocks in a three-set match.
For Awoleye, who was a Gopher 100 feature in September, it was her first career Big Ten weekly award.
Charles Hallman welcomes reader comments to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.