Building Community On and Off the Court
Weathers brings passion to all her experiences
Liv Sewell
She’s not just an energizer on the court — she’s a spark in her community.
Naeemah Weathers, or by those closest to her, Nemo, a blocker for Colorado State volleyball, is coined with the name “Energizer” by many of her teammates and coaches. But that title wasn’t something she was ever expecting coming into her first year during the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If I looked back at myself in high school to now, I was a really bad volleyball player,” Weathers said. “To see myself be able to grow into the volleyball player and human that I am now is something that I take for granted a lot. I’ve completely changed who I am on the court. I’m a lot more confident, and I enjoy being around my team.”
As a fifth-year student, Weathers is approaching her last days playing in Moby Arena for cheering crowds, and her career has borne many fruits. She was named a Mountain West All-Conference player in 2022 and 2023 and ranked seventh in the country last year with a .426 hitting percentage off her 232 kills.
Overall, Weathers has many achievements under her belt when it comes to playing volleyball at CSU, but what she wants to do after graduation continues to be a passion centered around the community she built in Fort Collins.
“WomenGive has been a huge partnership that CSU volleyball has kept going the past couple of years,” Weathers said. “They provide scholarships for single moms within the Larimer County community. They also provide childcare so they’re able to go to class without worrying. We all love our moms, so it’s been huge to impact other moms in the community the same way that we would have liked to see our moms impacted had they been in that situation.”
The blocker comes from a big family with four siblings and attributes her life to them in many ways, as well as how she interacts with the community and new roster additions.
With the five new players on the roster, mentorship not only on the court but also in the community continues to be paramount in building a team which focuses on being active in its locale.
“I think about when I was a freshman and the fifth-year that impacted me the most,” Weathers said, referring to former teammate Alexa Roumeliotis. “I think about her all the time when I interact with freshmen. For me, obviously, I want to be the best person on the court that I can and be the best middle this program has ever seen, but I also want to be the best leader for the freshmen and younger kids who are coming through this program. She impacted me and took me under her wing, and I want to be that for them. When I think about the legacy that I want to leave, I want to be the person they talk about.”
A focus on leadership mentality was a main point the coaching staff concentrated on during preseason.
Players took assessments to better understand how they lead and how it contributes not only to the team at hand but also to their lives outside of the practice space. Understanding who on the team can bring different things to the table improves chemistry overall and lets players know more about themselves.
“I hope they understand that there’s no right or wrong way to be,” coach Emily Kohan said. “Each person on the team has their own strengths and each person has things they can work on to better. I think it’s good to have self-refection of ‘This is what I can add to the team, and this is what I can get better at.’ But also, just to recognize that people that are different from you can still be really valuable and we need all different types of people to be the most successful team.”
Weather’s contribution to the team is clear, and the nickname follows her in the way she plays. It becomes a byproduct which will follow her from CSU.
Coming from a military family, her extroverted and bright nature continues to shine through whenever she plays or speaks for large crowds, who are all hung on her next word.
“I’m from a military family, so we’ve bounced around a ton,” Weathers said. “I love being around people because I’ve been involved in so many communities, so my family is a huge part of that. And the fact that it’s so big, you have to be a people person with that many people in your house at all times.”
That’s been huge for me and was a huge part of my personal development, being able to meet all those people and do all those new things.Naeemah Weathers
Her disposition led to one of the friendships she holds to this day with outside hitter Kennedy Stanford.
Both players entered CSU during the pandemic when the incoming class was held in the dorms, and because of that, the two describe themselves as kin.
“I think being in the dorms as freshmen during COVID forged a bond between our whole class,” Stanford said. “As the years have gone on, we’ve been roommates for four years now and so that helped strengthen our bond. It’s something that has just grown year over year where we’re truly like sisters now. It’s a cool thing to be walking out here with someone I’m so close with.”
Sisters on the court and in life, the two continue to look onward, and after the team’s win for the Golden Spike on Sep. 20 against Boulder, confidence in what the team can do is only rising.
Winning a trophy such as that becomes a physical representation of the work put in, but the team behind the curtain has dreams other than just volleyball. For Weathers, working with children continues to be her calling after graduation.
“I want to work with kids,” Weathers said. “I want them to see me as a positive force in their life. I want to translate that from on the court into my professional life because volleyball here is coming to an end for me.”
However, her passion for community and Fort Collins in particular wasn’t something she always held with her.
Before coming to CSU, she had never been involved in community outreach, but the partnership with WomenGive became one of the things she became most passionate about during her college career.
“I had never done community service until I got into Colorado State,” Weathers said. “I want to keep doing things out of the goodness of my heart. I got here, and we were voluntold to do it, (but) I realized that I really enjoy it. So, I will volunteer and go read at the elementary schools or go shadow and be teacher’s aids because that’s what I want to do when I graduate. That’s been huge for me and was a huge part of my personal development, being able to meet all those people and do all those new things.”
Outreach can be intimidating for new players, but as both Weathers and Stanford showcased, the learning curve is surmountable, and involvement in any form is all that matters.
Kohan herself noticed the differences in the pair from their first year to their fifth year, having been an assistant coach since 2015 and head coach since 2022.
“I think when a lot of the freshmen come in, they are shy and a little bit intimidated by all the outreach work that we do in the communities,” Kohan said. “The freshmen look up to these guys and ask, ‘Am I ever going to be able to do that?’ We partner bigs and littles, and they’ve done a nice job mentoring. It’s been really cool to see them leave a legacy outside of volleyball.”
Imprinting a legacy is no easy feat, but it continues to be at the forefront of their minds as they traverse this year.
Part of that legacy continues to be volleyball and the community which comes with it.
“Something that our class has talked about a lot is where do we want to see ourselves when we finish this,” Stanford said. “A lot of us, we want to leave a good resume on the court, but we also want to leave here as prominent parts of this community at CSU, but also Fort Collins and also known as good leaders.”
One extensive resume later, Weathers is set up for the rest of her days playing for the Rams. As she digs into Mountain West play, the Energizer continues to show up in every way.
That kind of legacy doesn’t necessarily hang in the rafters, but it directly affects the community at hand. Her passion for her court and locality continues, and it won’t let up anytime soon.
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