Minium: Myah Conway Is One of Five Former ODU Volleyball Players Playing Professionally in Europe

By Harry Minium

NORFOLK,  Va. – At a time when engineers are very much in demand, Myah Conway has almost an ideal resume. She graduated from Old Dominion’s prestigious Batten College of Engineering and Technology with a near-perfect 3.8 grade-point average last spring.

“I got a couple of B grades and it was devastating when I did,” she said with a laugh.

Otherwise, she was a straight A student, and she’s in civil engineering, a field in which women, especially, are in high demand.  

Months before she walked across the stage at S.B. Ballard to get her diploma, she had several offers from engineering firms.

“I thought about just going straight into the job market,” she said.

Instead, Conway is in Linköping, Sweden, a couple of hours south of Stockholm, where she is playing professional volleyball for the Linköping Volleyball Club.

After four outstanding seasons at ODU, where she was a three-time All-Sun Belt selection, and perhaps the best volleyball player ever to wear a Monarch jersey, she decided to put off her engineering career for a time.

And she had the blessing of her parents, Kieran and Jessica Conway.

“If you’re going to do something like this, live overseas and play the sport you love, you should do it now,” Kieran said. “Do it while you’re young.”

Conway is one of five ODU volleyball alumni playing professionally in Europe.

Valentina Culaciati, a native of Argentina and one of the so-called “Founding Mothers” of the ODU volleyball program, is playing for Rote Raben Vilsbiburg II in Vilsbiburg, Germany. The Founding Mothers are the 14 women who played on ODU’s first team in the spring of 2021.

Two more founding mothers are also playing professionally. Camilla Tamburini is playing for the San Damaso club in her native Italy. Alessia Sgherza, also from Italy, is playing for the Aduna Padova club in Padova, Italy.

Alice Munari, who graduated last spring and is also from Italy, is playing for Mondovi Volleyball club in Mondovi, Italy.

For a program in just its sixth season, having five alumni playing professionally is quite an accomplishment.

“The fact they they’re still enjoying playing, that they still have the passion and drive to play, I think speaks more about them than the program,” said Fred Chao, ODU’s head coach, who founded the program.

“I think what it says about us is that we can prepare them for a professional career in volleyball as well as in any academic endeavor they choose.”

While playing at Blue Mountain High School in Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, Myah had a number of college options, including Coastal Carolina and West Virginia. She was unable to visit ODU as a senior because of the pandemic, but liked what she saw on an official visit as a junior.

“The program was so new that the gym wasn’t ready yet,” she said of the ODU Volleyball Center. “But it was really important to me to find a school that I liked outside of volleyball because there’s more to life than just your sport.

“And I knew I wanted to be an engineering major and that ODU had a great engineering program. ODU wasn't too far away from home. It's warm and the beach is there. And I loved the campus and my teammates.”

Now standing 6-foot-3 with a muscular frame, Myah looked far different when she visited ODU as a high school junior in 2019, just before the pandemic.

“She was probably 6-feet tall and so skinny that it was hard for us to determine if she would be durable enough to play for us,” Chao said.

When she reported to him that she had gained 20 pounds over the summer, and was able to reach the 10-foot mark when she jumped, he offered her a scholarship. Because of the pandemic, it would be 18 months between her official visit and enrolling at ODU.

“When her parents brought her here and she stepped out of the mini van, I realized right away that she’d grown,” Chao said. “I was shocked at how much taller and bigger she was. She didn’t look the same.”

She was an instant star for ODU. She was third on the team with 2.19 kills per set as a freshman and made the Conference USA All-Freshman Team.

She was an All-Sun Belt First Team selection as a sophomore and junior and made the league's Second Team as a senior. She played 416 sets in 111 matches and had 1,383 kills in her time at ODU. She averaged 3.911 kills per set as a senior.

Few can match Conway’s velocity when spiking a ball over the net.

A foot injury bothered her much of her senior year. “And in a weird way, that was a blessing in disguise,” her father said. “It encouraged her to keep going, to want to play professionally.”

She’s been in Sweden a few months but acknowledges to being a little homesick.

 “People keep asking me what’s different in Europe,” she said. “And I’m like, literally everything.

“The way people look, the way they dress. People are much more laid back here. They don’t really speak unless you speak to them but they’re really, really nice when you do speak.

“Transportation is also a huge difference. Everyone here walks or rides a bike. There are hardly any cars.”

“Fortunately,” she added, “nearly everyone here speaks English.”

She’s doing her best to learn Swedish on Duolingo, “but I have so far to go.”

Her parents were frequent visitors to ODU games. Her father works in finance and her mother is a nurse. Her brother, Gavin, a recent graduate of Pitt, and sister, Kylie, a junior at James Madison, also frequently made the trip to ODU.

Two dozen family members piled into vans to catch a game late in her senior year. "We all stayed in Virginia Beach and made it a vacation weekend," Kieran said. 

“I think my father went to every match we had when I was a senior,” Myah added.

And both parents are incredibly proud of their daughter.

“She’s smart, she’s beautiful, she’s athletic and her work ethic is off the charts,” Kieran said. “She’s overcome a lot. When she was young, she was such a dinky little thing who could hardly get the ball over the net. And look at her now.

“When she was at ODU, she really focused on working in the weight room and probably put on 50 pounds. She takes on so much and handles it with grace. My wife and I, we are just amazed that she’s doing things that we don’t do in our mid 40s.”

Myah said she is deeply indebted to Chao, associate head coach Becca Lamb, and former assistant Adam McLamb, who left ODU after last season.

“They were so helpful and so supportive,” she said. “They really pushed me. They saw my potential at times when I didn’t see my potential.

“When I look back at my film in high school, I wonder at times, how did I get to play in Division I? But they saw something in me and pushed me to be able to become the best player and the best person I could be in college.

“It wasn’t just about volleyball at ODU. It was about academics, about doing things right on and off the court.

"I’m so glad that I went to ODU.”

Minium is ODU’s senior executive writer. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram