Why Asjia O'Neal is ready to be the face of the Columbus Fury, Pro Volleyball Federation
As Asjia O’Neal took the volleyball court at Nationwide Arena for the first time, she took a moment to realize how cool her reality was.
With the Fury, she has a chance to play professional volleyball in front of thousands of people. Many players before her had only dreamed of doing this in the United States. O’Neal said she does not take that for granted.
“I just really try to be grateful and be where my feet are,” O’Neal said after the Fury’s first game in Columbus. “Just really soak in every single second of opportunity.”
Even before she took the court for the first time in Columbus, O’Neal was already the face of the Fury as the team’s first-ever draft selection and of the Pro Volleyball Federation as the league’s first No. 1 overall pick.
Why Asjia O'Neal fell in love with volleyball
O’Neal wanted to find her own path.
The daughter of former NBA All-Star center Jermaine O’Neal, Asjia said she tried to distance herself from basketball. Instead, she tried soccer, dance, gymnastics and even acting. It was after a brief introduction to the sport in elementary school that Asjia found her love for volleyball, taking up the sport in earnest in seventh grade. Her family had just moved to Southlake, Texas.
“I just really like that you really have to rely on everybody around you to do well,” O’Neal said. “You can’t just have a one-person show in volleyball, and take over. You really do need that team chemistry.”
Colleges flocked to watch O’Neal as early as eighth grade. She blossomed into one of the top high school volleyball players in the country, becoming a three-time USA Volleyball Girls Junior National Championship All-Tournament team member.
O’Neal went on to play for Texas and was a first-team All-American middle blocker. She helped the Longhorns win back-to-back national championships during her six collegiate seasons.
“As a hitter, you can just feel her across the net,” Fury outside hitter Reagan Cooper, who played against O'Neal in college at Texas Tech and Kansas, said. “As a hitter, a big part of what I had to go through was basically just hitting around Asjia O’Neal because her blocking is incredible. Like, no one has blocked me like she has.”
But O'Neal had to fight for her volleyball future.
Born with a heart murmur and a slight mitral valve leak, she had to have multiple open-heart surgeries, including one in 2020 after her redshirt freshman season at Texas.
O’Neal said she “hasn’t had any issues” since her last operation and added that her recovery has helped define who she is as a player and person.
“There’s so many things that I saw myself doing and I had planned for myself that I didn’t want to just throw in the towel and give up and say, ‘Well, it was a good run,’ ” O’Neal said. “That’s just not my personality at all.”
Volleyball gives Asjia O'Neal her voice
O'Neal views volleyball as a platform.
She said she has dedicated her life to a bigger cause: representing Black women and bringing diversity to a sport that had very little when she first started playing.
“I think it’s a blessing of a responsibility to have because I want to be that person for younger girls that look like me,” O’Neal said.
As a fellow Black middle blocker, Rainelle Jones gravitated to O’Neal immediately.
“Just to be able to have athletes that look like you and act like you and also doing the same exact things that you’re doing shows that it’s a struggle, but we’re in a struggle together,” Jones said. “All eyes are on us. She’s going to prove why there should be eyes on us.”
When she was learning volleyball, O’Neal said, she looked up to Chiaka Ogbogu, a former Texas middle blocker who grew up 15 minutes away and was five years older than she was. Ogbogu played the style of volleyball O’Neal said she plays, one based on physicality and aggression, one that enables her to become the emotional cog of the team.
Fury coach Angel Perez said O’Neal is now that example, an inspiration not only for the fans but also for her teammates.
“What she brings to the table gives us a lot of swagger. She’s a winner, she’s a fighter. She’s determined on what she wants to accomplish. And I think that’s contagious.”
Asjia O’Neal knows what she wants
What O'Neal is determined to do is to grow the sport nationwide, and she wants to make the United States national team roster.
To get there, O’Neal said she takes lessons her father taught her from his days in the NBA. That includes learning how to become her own best advocate, how to be a self-motivator and how to be a role model girls look up to.
O’Neal knows the opportunity is there to make an impact. It’s the opportunity she’s been preparing for.
“Walk in every room like God put you there because he did,” O’Neal said. “Like no scenario or situation that I’m in is too big for myself because if I wasn’t prepared, I wouldn’t be here.”
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Asjia O'Neal is ready to be the face of the Columbus Fury
