HAMPTON, Va. – Athletes are, by and large, a superstitious lot. Alyssa Jackson is no different.

 

Before every volleyball match, the Hampton University senior has to continue her ritual. She eats some trail mix before taking a two-hour nap. Jackson doesn’t wash her knee pads, and she has to have her lucky Olympic sports bra ready with the rest of her uniform. Whereas other players keep their socks pulled all the way up, Jackson folds hers down.

 

Then there’s the Li’l Wayne song “I’m a D-Boy,” which pumps in Jackson’s ears before every match.

 

Partially because of this ritual, Jackson is often the last player out of the locker room before a match. But without it, things just don’t seem right.

 

“I have to do that stuff, every single time,” she said. “If I’m off even a little bit in my pregame rituals, everything just goes so bad on the court.”

 

As the Lady Pirates head into the homestretch before hosting the 2008 MEAC Volleyball Tournament (Nov. 16-17), Jackson is Hampton’s defensive leader. She leads the MEAC in digs with 369 on the season. That’s an average of 13.2 per match, and her season average tops the league at 3.62. Norfolk State’s Jourdan Ellison is second with an average of 3.40.

 

As the team’s libero, Jackson (Fort Wayne, Ind.) takes on an added leadership role, on top of the one she carries naturally as one of the team’s four seniors. The libero is strictly a defensive position, someone who can come into the game for someone on the back line without the coach having to burn a substitution.

 

“I’m sort of the general of the defense,” Jackson said. “All I have to worry about is kicking up everything on defense so the rest of the team can go on the attack.”

 

 

Leadership is often assumed when one is a senior, and is already part of Jackson’s job description with her position as libero. But as Jackson and the other seniors prepare to play their final few matches for Hampton, they do their part to prepare the rest of the young team for seasons to come.

 

Each senior has at least one underclassman to take under their wing, sort of show them the ropes of playing NCAA Division I volleyball and making sure the Hampton way of doing things survived into next season and beyond.

 

Jackson has spent the season mentoring freshmen Rachel Baylor and Adriana Vazquez. Baylor (Chesterfield, Va.) will likely be the team’s libero next season, something Jackson points to when discussing her on-court role.

 

“That sort of makes what I do a little easier,” she said. “I can tell her what she needs to do on the court, but sometimes just having her watch me can teach her things I could never really tell her.”

 

Also making Jackson’s job easier is freshman Lihi Elkayam (Misgav, Israel). The setter, who is fourth in the MEAC in assists with 845, an average of 8.28, is one of the more vocal leaders on the court, directing teammates on the attack while the ball is still in the air. For Jackson, that splits her on-court responsibilities in half, allowing her to focus more on the defensive side of the game.

 

“She really helps me as a leader,” Jackson said of Elkayam. “With her up front doing what she does, I don’t have to worry about any of it. I can concentrate solely on following the ball and making sure everyone in the back row’s in position.”

 

 

When Jackson first arrived at Hampton University as a freshman, she was part of a large recruiting class she dubbed “The Fab Five.” The group, which Jackson called “the closest class to ever come through Hampton,” consisted of herself, Ese Ighedosa, Jasmin Elder, Aminah Charles and Morgan Williams. They went everywhere and did everything together, and though Elder and Williams are no longer on the team, Jackson remembers those bonds and continues to foster those with Ighedosa and Charles.

 

Those three, along with Ebonie Vincent, will be honored before next Wednesday night’s match against Howard for Senior Night. The match will start at 6 p.m. at Holland Hall, and though the Lady Pirates have two road matches between Howard and the MEAC tournament, Jackson isn’t afraid to admit there will be some emotions.

 

“It’s going to be a waterworks party,” she said. “There are going to be some tears.”

 

The Fab Five was so close, Jackson said, that she and her teammates wrote two songs set to the melodies of already-existing hits. One was set to R. Kelly’s hit “I Believe I Can Fly,” while the other was set to the tune of Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road.”

 

“It just shows how close we are,” Jackson said.

 

Jackson was recruited by the late Tiny Laster, playing for his for two years before his death. She then played last season and this year for head coach Pedro Gonzalez, a transition Jackson said was tough at first, but now one she’s appreciated.

 

“It was real tough,” she said, “because of how close we all were to Coach Laster. But with Coach Gonzalez, he has more technical knowledge, so I can ask him a technical question and get a good answer – like, where to set my feet, what angle to take on a ball. Coach Laster didn’t really know all that stuff, but Coach Gonzalez has really taught me in that regard.”

 

And in the process, give Jackson a chance to examine her future.

 

 

After receiving her undergraduate degree in marketing this May, Jackson plans to attend graduate school for business administration. Though Jackson has expressed interest in attending Hampton University for her master’s degree, she’s also considering Howard, South Carolina State and Morgan State.

 

But Gonzalez’s influence – and the addition of assistant coach Rob Maziarz – has shown Jackson the potential of coaching. Should Jackson decide to attend Hampton for graduate school, she expressed an interest in joining Gonzalez’s staff as a graduate assistant.

 

“He really made me look and think into the future,” she said. “And the addition of rob has really opened my eyes … practices are more productive now. We can get more one-on-one things done, like … Coach Gonzalez can work on an offensive drill while Coach Maziarz is teaching a defensive drill.

 

“We just get a lot more done.”

 

Though Jackson ruled out the possibility of playing internationally – “Heavens no,” she said – her role as a sort of coach on the court as the libero, combined with Gonzalez’s influence, was enough to make Jackson consider coaching, even as her academic career took her elsewhere.

 

“I’ll be sad that my collegiate career’s coming to an end, but I know I gave it my all,” she said. “I was blessed to have the opportunity to play for and represent a great school like Hampton University.”