Learning her grandmother's sport: Mohawk volleyball player to compete at NAIG

A love of sports runs in the blood of Akwesasne volleyball player Kawehnokwiio Bailey Thomas, who will be competing at this year's North American Indigenous Games with team Eastern Door and the North.

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From lacrosse, to hockey, to swimming and running, Thomas said that almost everyone in her family plays at least one sport. There are even a few people from her family who have made the Ontario Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

But the pressure to live up to her family's sporty reputation doesn't bother Thomas.

"It really motivates me to get up there and make my name known — like how [my relatives] are," said 18-year old Thomas.

Playing both hockey and volleyball, Thomas hopes to move onto University-level hockey, but for the North American Indigenous Games, she is following in her grandmother's footsteps by competing in volleyball.

Volleyball is very popular in Akwesasne, and Thomas said it's all thanks to her grandmother, Kahnastatsi Nancy Jacobs, who introduced the sport in 1978 to the Mohawk community.

"My grandma actually brought volleyball to our reservation decades ago," said Thomas. "She played and taught everyone here."

Introduced sport to Akwesasne

Kahnastatsi Nancy Jacobs first learned how to play volleyball when she was in high school in Cornwall, Ont. Even though she played a bunch of different sports, there was something about volleyball that always drew her back.

After high school she attended Centennial College in Toronto, where she played for the school's volleyball team.

When she returned home to Akwesasne in 1978, she realized that people in the community didn't know how to play volleyball, so she decided to teach the sport and create a co-ed league.  

"We didn't have much of anything, you know we're on the reserve," said Jacob. "So it wasn't hard to persuade [people to join], because there wasn't much going on, and everybody wanted something to do."

She created the Soaring Eagles Volleyball Club, and 39 years later the club is still training some of the best players in amateur Canadian volleyball.

"It's really rewarding when I see our teams at the provincials for volleyball," said Jacobs, who says that four local teams attended Ontario provincial competitions this year.

Coaching her granddaughter

This year is Thomas's second time competing at NAIG, but she has been attending the Games for years with her grandmother, who is the coach of the Eastern Door and the North female U19 NAIG team.

When asked what it feels like to have her granddaughter follow in her footsteps, Jacobs is quick to say that the sport came naturally to Thomas.

"When [Bailey] was four years old… I brought her to the school with me, and she spotted a volleyball, so she threw it at me," said Jacobs. "I threw it back at her, and her [volleyball] stance was perfect."

"All the teachers who were standing around said, 'oh my God look at that perfect stance, we know whose granddaughter that is.'"

And the tradition of playing sports is not stopping with Thomas.

"I have one sibling and quite a few younger cousins, and they're all at the age where they're just getting into sports," said Thomas. "They're always asking me what they should do on the court or the ice."

Thomas is encouraging of her sibling and cousins pursuing sports, because it teaches young athletes dedication and determination — two skills that apply to the life on and off the court.