Sophomore middle blocker Mariana Aquino during the Bruins’ 3-0 victory over Oregon State on Oct. 14.
Mariana Aquino says “North Dakota” a bit slowly, drawing it out ““ her father spent a year there as an exchange student in high school, but for the most part it’s foreign to her, as it probably is to the average resident of Los Angeles.
Believe it or not though, North Dakota played an important part in Aquino’s trajectory in life. Had her father not visited the United States in high school, he likely wouldn’t have wanted his daughter to leave Brazil to go to a university there someday.
Aquino grew up in the city of Curitiba, the capital of the southern Brazilian state of Paraná. According to her, it doesn’t match the stereotypical image most people have of Brazil.
“My city doesn’t look like Brazil at all. It’s southern Brazil. It gets really cold, and it rains a lot. Growing up in Brazil was great though. I lived in a private condo, a big area like a house with a lot of space to play. It was really safe. People used to have this image of Brazil being dangerous, but where I grew up was not at all,” Aquino said.
Aquino’s childhood environment allowed her to be extremely active, and she believes it shaped her athletic interests and influenced her passion for sports.
“We had a lot of space, I was climbing trees all the time, playing sports the whole day, after school, before school. That kind of pushed me up to be more athletic and try to go out,” Aquino said.
“In Brazil there are a lot of people who live in apartments so it’s really common for them to not be involved in sports or outdoor activities. I had the opposite of that. I was always going out. It was safe for me to go out and play with my friends. I have a really good memory of playing cops and robbers for five hours with my friends, even at night.”
As she grew up, both in age and in inches, Aquino got into volleyball through a family friend who coached a club volleyball team and saw that Aquino’s height offered her an advantage in the sport.
“I started playing volleyball when I was 13, I had a family friend who was a volleyball coach, and her daughter played in a club in my city. We were having lunch one day and it had been ten years since she’d seen me, and she said, “˜Oh you’re so tall. You should play volleyball,’ so that’s how it started,” Aquino said.
“I went to this club, and at the time I didn’t like being tall. I didn’t want to grow any more, and at this club I saw all the girls were my height, and I really liked it there. I felt like I could fit there.”
Aquino channeled her passion for sports into volleyball, devoting a large amount of her life to it. This eventually came into conflict with her other passion: singing. Even now her face lights up as she talks about it.
“I love singing. I was a singer in Brazil, I had to stop singing because in 2007 I still lived in Curitiba, and I saw we didn’t have really good volleyball there. If I wanted to pursue a career in volleyball I had to change cities ““ I had to go another state that had better volleyball, so I went to another state and lived with family friends,” Aquino said.
Aquino managed to balance her two passions for a while, traveling all over Brazil during her teenage years, competing in tournaments while continuing to pursue her artistic development. But eventually it became too much for her, and she had to choose.
“My life was being on stage or being on a court. It was really difficult for me to stop singing like I did. Both passions with me always walked together, and at that point it just broke, I couldn’t do it anymore,” Aquino said.
To fill the gap, Aquino began taking guitar lessons in her free time since it was less of a time commitment, and this brought back some of the joy that performing had given her. Aquino gets a similar joy from volleyball, even if it’s of a different nature. One of her favorite memories with the team was their preseason victory over Hawaii this year.
“I loved the game against Hawaii this year. We won in four, and it was crowded. I love crowded places. When I play I feel the energy. If it’s against me I get the same way; it’s a good energy for me. It gets me playing better, and the team really came together.”
Aquino’s lack of stage fright and love of crowds isn’t surprising when you consider her passion for entertaining. According to her, the more people rooting against her the better, and the Bruins will have to get past a lot of that to achieve their biggest goal this season.
“To win the national championship in December, that’s our main goal. We have a really good chance to win, and we can see that we can beat whoever we want when we’re in the right place,” Aquino said.
Helping her achieve this goal are her teammates and coaches, who say Acquino brings a lot to the team, both on and off the court.
Coach Mike Sealy has seen Aquino’s hitting and blocking improve since she’s been here, and added that her attitude was everything a coach could ask for in a player.
“Her hitting is fantastic. She gets up quick. She’s a good system hitter that takes a lot of pressure off our outsides. She’s steadily improved in every area of the game,” Sealy said.
“For me she’s extremely coachable. She’s the most improved player on the team in the last couple of years,” he added.
Aquino attributes this work ethic and attitude to her parents, who she cites as her role models.
“They raised me, they gave me the values I have, and I look up to them. My sports role model is the soccer player Kaká. I really look up to him, he’s really talented, and he never gave up on his dreams,” Aquino said.
As it came time for her to graduate high school, Aquino received some scholarship offers from American universities, but none of them enticed her to leave her home. That changed when she was connected with a program that specialized in sending Brazilian athletes to play collegiately in the United States.
It took some convincing, but Aquino went along with it, and the company made a recruiting video and sent it to the top 25 volleyball schools in the U.S. A few weeks later, Aquino had received 25 offers ““ but only one really stood out to her.
“When I saw that UCLA wanted me, I already knew about UCLA, and I wanted to be there; they have all the things that I want. The city is amazing, the university is amazing, the volleyball team is amazing, and my music career ““ why not come back to that too? I missed that so much,” Aquino said.
Aquino embarked on a 12-day tour of the U.S. and visited four schools on the way, starting at Florida and going to Ohio State, Illinois and finally to UCLA.
“They pay for you to do five official visits, and I did four. I did it all at once, in twelve days to four schools. I don’t know how I did it, but I did. It was my first time seeing snow, it was a crazy trip but it was a good time,” Aquino said.
Along with the rest of the team, Aquino has bonded with fellow international student junior outside hitter Tabi Love.
“We first got in touch because we’re both international students; I like having someone who’s a little more foreign than I am,” Love said with a smile. Love also attested to Aquino’s energy and poise on the court.
“I think she brings a lot of heat to the court with her hitting and blocking, especially her blocking. She brings a lot of energy and fire, and she’s so confident and calm that it rubs off on everyone else,” Love said.
Aquino’s future is still up in the air, but if one thing is for sure, it’s that she has options. Whether it’s performing in front of a microphone or above a net, Aquino plans to work hard until she achieves her goals.
“It’s crazy. Four years go by fast, but I’m doing everything that I can to have options ““ in the music side, in the sports side and the academic side. Who knows what’s going to happen, but I’m working hard at everything to make sure everything works at the end.”