For athletes to attain success, they must be able to run on self-motivation, the internal motor that keeps running even after milestones have been reached and expectations fulfilled.
Bruin senior volleyball player Ali Daley has this in spades.
From the ages of 9 to 14, Daley played Little League baseball with the boys, just for the challenge. Playing volleyball, she put up huge numbers as a freshman outside hitter at Long Beach State, but decided she needed to be playing against the best.
She then transferred to UCLA, joining one of the top volleyball programs in the nation. After recent shoulder surgery, her goal became to hit the ball harder than she ever had before.
There are some people that never feel like they have reached a limit.
Now, as one of UCLA’s five seniors on a squad that is loaded with young talent, Daley is channeling her exceptional sense of drive as a team leader.
“(Teammates) feel comfortable to come talk to me if they have any issues or if they need someone for guidance because I’ve been through pretty much everything,” Daley said.
Welcoming nine freshmen to the locker room is a challenge for any team, but the initial uneasiness can be weathered by a strong presence of veteran knowledge and experience, a responsibility that Daley wholly accepts.
“This year, I feel like I have a more solid leadership role on the team,” Daley said. “And I feel more comfortable in that position and more open to express it.”
On the court, Daley knows she is not the most vocal player, choosing a mentoring style she describes as “lead by example.” And led she has.
During last year’s Pac-10 season, en route to garnering an all-conference Honorable Mention selection, she was first on the team with 3.78 kills and 3.82 digs per game. Through seven non-conference matches this season, she is second on the team in both of those categories and first on the team in service aces.
Daley’s list of athletic accomplishments continues to grow, but they were piling up long before she reached Westwood.
Even as a young girl growing up in a Northern California town of only 10,000 people, Daley’s expectations were anything but small town.
“When I was little, I always knew I was going to play volleyball or some sport in college,” Daley said. “I always have these high goals where I want to get to a higher level.”
Daley’s older brother, Greg, was a constant outlet for her competitive passion. Separated by only a year, the two played Little League baseball in Grass Valley together for five years until Daley began to focus solely on volleyball in high school.
“We pushed each other,” Daley said. “Especially being a girl, I pushed him a lot. We competed on a brother-sister level, but also kind of for who could get more recognition. I think that was an extreme positive. My parents never pushed us to anything; we just kind of had the competition in us.”
Such a spirited relationship has seemingly paid off for both the siblings. Gary Daley Jr., who decided to stick with baseball, was recently drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals and is playing in the minor leagues.
After a record-setting career at Nevada Union High School, in which she led the team to the state championships in her senior year, Daley accepted a scholarship at Long Beach State. In that first year, she was named to the All-Big West first team and was ninth in the conference in kills per game, but such quick success did not suit Daley’s desire to hang with the best. It was while sitting in on her brother’s meeting with a sports agency that she realized that she might be selling herself short.
“They talked about the value of yourself as an athlete,” Daley said. “I felt like my value was at a higher competition level.”
If she was going to become a better player, Daley wanted to make sure she was forcing herself to play among the volleyball elite, but she also needed a place that felt natural.
“Walking around UCLA, with the coaches or the team, I felt like I belonged. I felt like I was in my hometown,” she said.
Any connection strong enough to make Los Angeles feel like Grass Valley is bound to be given some attention.
By transferring to Westwood, Daley would provide herself with a bevy of athletic and academic opportunities, and with her outstanding resume, the Bruins were more than happy to add her to their roster.
Now, two years later, Daley is one of the team’s old hands, but she will face a new challenge due to January’s shoulder surgery. Nevertheless, Daley could not be more positive about the situation. She sees adding daily rehab workouts to her schedule as an advantage because before the surgery her shoulder would not have been able to take that kind of routine.
“I like doing my rehab in the weight room because in the training room you always feel like you’re injured,” Daley said. The ardent Daley does not imagine herself as anything but competing to her fullest potential.
As UCLA hopes to improve on last year’s exit in the national quarterfinals, Daley looks to do her part in getting the Bruins to that point.
“I’m just hoping to bring some more heat on the ball,” Daley said. “And actually I am. I’m hitting a lot harder than I was last year. My shoulder is doing real well right now.”
The Bruins may not accomplish all their goals this season, especially with a list of perennial powerhouses on their conference schedule, but if Daley can get her personal determination to take root in the team’s psyche, it will not come from a lack of desire.