December 12, 2023

Nicole Robison was born to be an EcoAthletes Champion.

After all, the junior beach volleyballer at Santa Clara University by way of St. Petersburg, Florida reports that, in addition to her family and faith, her deepest loves have been sports, water, and nature. And considering the many injuries Robison has had to overcome – and is still overcoming – Robison is well suited to the obstacle-laden #ClimateComeback.

“The outdoors has always been important to me,” asserted Robison. “I went to a Catholic sleepaway camp for seven summers. I loved that we were in nature, unplugged – there was no cellular tech allowed – and we’d wake up at dawn. So peaceful. And it dawned on me that so many people around the world did not have access to nature. I felt then that we had to preserve places like these and expand access to them.”

Robison had access to a plethora of sports from a young age and was successful at most, with soccer and volleyball at the top of the pecking order. When it came to the latter, she followed the lead of her older sister, Lindsey, who introduced her to the sport when she made the middle school team.

“I’d tag along with her wherever she went volleyball-wise,” she recalled. “When I was eight, there was a free clinic after a game. My sister said, ‘you’re too young!’ I tried anyway and killed it!”

When Robison got to sixth grade, it became clear that she would have to choose soccer or volleyball. It was not an easy decision.

“No matter which sport I chose, I would bring my competitive attitude and my ‘never get outworked’ ethos,” reported Robison. “I loved soccer, especially playing with boys and being able to outplay them. But a middle school PE teacher told me, ‘You’re much better in volleyball than you are at soccer — your choice is clear!’ He was right — I had a high volleyball IQ thanks to playing with my sister for so long, and my body type and athleticism were better to suited to the sport. It was a tough choice, but the right one.”

Another choice was soon to be put in front of Robison: Indoor volleyball versus beach.

“I was a setter, the quarterback of an indoor team, which I loved,” she recounted. “My eighth-grade coach, Svetlana Simic (now Doubravsky), also coached beach. She thought my all-around skills would be well suited to the sand, which features a 2-person rather than a 6-person team. I gave it a try, showed some aptitude for it but still stuck with indoor through 10th grade in part because the competition level at the beach club was not where it needed to be. That began to improve so I played with both the beach club and an elite indoor club in my sophomore year. It was the hardest year ever, with the travel and schoolwork, and so I kind of plateaued at both. In the end, I had to choose one. I had played in a top beach tournament in California. While the competition was too strong for me at the time, I started to see that I could reach my highest level on the beach. I kept hearing Svetlana’s voice in my head, saying ‘the all-everything nature of beach volleyball suits your skills’. I listened that voice and chose beach.”

In part because she came to beach volleyball relatively late in the game, Robison’s college recruitment didn’t shift into high gear until her junior year. While that meant that powerful programs like Stanford and Cal-Berkeley had already filled out their recruiting classes, Santa Clara University, an up-an-coming Division I program, had a spot available.

“My November-January season my junior year was my best ever and Jeff Alzina, the Santa Clara coach, saw my video,” said Robison. “I had never heard of the school, but my beach volleyball club coach told me that Coach Alzina is ‘the best volleyball coach in the country — CALL HIM!’ So, I did, and he told me he wants to establish Santa Clara as a beach volleyball powerhouse. While I considered the University of Tampa, I was sold on being a Santa Clara Bronco.”

And then the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Robison went back to playing indoor for her high school, helping the St. Petersburg High School Green Devils reach the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) Final Four. Next, it was off to Santa Clara, where a new and recurring challenge arose: Injuries.

“Injuries have been a problem for me since before I arrived on campus in the fall of 2021,” she lamented. “I tore my left abdominal and my PT’s approach was to take it slow. I was on a practice-only regimen during the fall season and eased into playing in January without any restrictions. Then, the week of our first game, I felt a pull. After a couple days off, I was able to play and win vs. Utah’s #1 team, following that up with a win against a good University of Pacific squad. But then the pain came back and after a couple of weeks, it was too much to bear. I got an MRI, and it showed a full tear.”

That meant Robison was done for the season, which led to a bout with depression (“I didn’t want to get out of bed”). She eventually came to a place of acceptance, began feeling more like herself, and started rehabbing again. Fast-forward to last fall and the beginning of her sophomore year and Robison was back in form.

“I was playing well and got invited to the national pairs championships in Alabama,” reported Robison. “Things were going well in the run-up and then we got there, and I feel a sharp pull on a jump serve against UCLA. When I got back, an MRI showed a sprain, not a tear so I kept going.”

Until she could no longer stand it. Again. The recurring injury cycle meant Robison stopped playing, this time for 13 weeks between November ’22 and February ’23. She dealt with more depression and another round of physical and mental rehab.

And still she persisted.

“I was not going to miss my one chance to play with our senior star, Julia Sangiacomo, no matter what the MRI said,” she insisted. “But I tore the same ab muscle two weeks into our championship season in March. The pain got so bad that by the end I had to serve underhand and threw sunglasses on so my opponents couldn’t see the pain I was in…I just gutted it out.”

Robison didn’t just get back on the beach, she was successful, beating Arizona and coming ‘this close’ to knocking off rivals Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount, before suffering yet another tear in the muscle.

“This time, I really shut it down,” Robison acknowledged. “I haven’t played since April, and I won’t get back to it until January. Doing what I can to fully heal is my mentality and then I want to get back on the beach with my teammates!”

When asked where she gets her fortitude to keep coming back, Robison cited the epic 10-part documentary series ‘The Last Dance’, about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls of the 1990s.

“Michael Jordan never let injury, illness or opponents get in his way,” she offered. “It was about the physical and mental work for Jordan and always striving for more; and that’s what it is for me, too.”

Robison has brought her Jordanesque grit to environmental action since she was a little girl.

“I didn’t know I was being an environmental steward when I was six years old by turning off the water on my sister as she was letting it run for no reason, or by bugging my parents to buy reusable bags,” the business major and sustainability minor exclaimed. “It was just common sense. As I got older, I began to understand the much bigger and serious climate problems with which we are all living — but not all of us acknowledge.”

Despite a growing climate science knowledge base, Robison found it hard to talk about the topic, even in the environmentally conscious Bay Area. That is why she was excited to learn about EcoAthletes and was enthusiastic about becoming an EcoAthletes Champion.

“People sometimes make fun of me for my reduce, reuse, recycle approach to life, including my own family,” she noted. “I wanted to turn that around and use my profile as a student-athlete — particularly through social media — to inspire my community to take climate action. That’s why I was so pumped when I heard about EcoAthletes. They will help me grow my climate influence and express my climate values through social media, podcasts and more. I’m ready to work hard to lead the #ClimateComeback at Santa Clara and beyond!”

You can follow Nicole on Instagram and Twitter