college sports

Athlete Interview: St. Olaf Volleyball Player Nicole Banitt on Balancing Academics and Cultivating a Team Personality

By Peyton Wright|Updated on June 27, 2023 (originally published on June 14, 2022)

Nicole Banitt is a junior captain on the St. Olaf Women's volleyball team and is majoring in Biology. Nicole has been playing volleyball for what feels like forever. She's always loved the sport and her teams, but has never had the level of closeness, or success of the St. Olaf team before. “The team… it's provided a really big group of friends and support group,” she said. “I'd say that a majority of my friends at St. Olaf are on my team.”

Nicole added that she believes that some of the team's success is rooted in just who they recruit. “I think that our program attracts a kind of core personality type,” she explained. “Obviously people have different beliefs, and differences in general, like what they each want to do with their life, but we all really kind of get along and all love each other and love to support each other with any differences we may have.”

Nicole and her team are driven, and not just on the court. They help each other improve academically. “I think that [balancing school and athletics] is something that works well for us,” she said. “There's a lot of STEM majors on the team, and so a lot of times when we do homework together, and we help each other out in our different studies, and there's often at least another person on the team in at least one of your classes.”

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Playing volleyball for the Ollies has shaped Nicole's college experience immensely, and in a very positive way. “Playing college sports has allowed me to become way more confident and grow into the person I've become. I definitely wouldn't have been able to do that without playing on the team.”

While Nicole says she didn't realize how tough the off-season would be, with extra lifting days and constant effort to keep the team's relationships strong, the captain says the key to success is in their relationship dynamics. “Sometimes recruits will ask me how I'm succeeding in college, and it's just like, even though it can be difficult, just try to be your authentic self,” she advised. “If you set up walls or barriers or that kind of thing, it just takes that much longer to break them down.”