Ex-Rattler finds her path

By Sean Rooney on December 22, 2018.

srooney@medicinehatnews.com @MHNRooney

It’s coming up on seven years since she last played college volleyball in Medicine Hat, and in some ways Megan Nagy still has close ties to the Gas City.

When she gets married next year, it’ll be to Tom DeHod, a fellow ex-Rattler. Her bridesmaids? Pretty much all ex-Rattler teammates.

And she can thank both her college athletics experience and the beach volleyball courts in Kin Coulee Park for spurring her on to what she does for a living now —which is to say, nothing she ever imagined when she was here.

“I never got on to a beach court until I was in my fourth summer in Medicine Hat,” said Nagy from her parent’s home in Saskatchewan this week. “I had to figure it out for the first time when I was 23 or 22.

“It wasn’t super fun the first time around but we played a lot since those courts were built. I stayed in Medicine Hat for those last two summers that I was in college there, we had quite a bit group of people who would go out every day.”

That’s right. Now 29, the former Canadian college player of the year is still pounding away, though now internationally and with sand between her toes.

Nagy just finished up a beach season with tour stops including China, Vietnam and Mexico, and hopes to make the Olympics before her career is done.

“When you grow up in a tiny town, you don’t really envision your life doing big things,” said the native of Bredenbury, Sask. “(DeHod) started telling me you should make bigger goals, setting yourself down a bigger path.”

So after helping Medicine Hat’s women’s volleyball team got to the national finals for the first time in school history in 2012, she went to France.

“That was by far the biggest growing experience of my life,” she said, noting then-Rattlers coach Benj Heinrichs was also a key mentor, setting her up with an agent who helped secure the contract. “It was so much different than anything I’ve experienced before.”

The coach only spoke French. She was the only native-English speaker on the team. They were based in the Champagne region of France, but Nagy didn’t drink any of the wine while there.

It was a great experience, but she got depressed.

“It’s a big change too because professional volleyball, you go to practice and work out, it takes up quite a few hours of your day. But that’s all you’re doing; I didn’t have any other interests yet. I didn’t know myself at all.”

She came to realize two things during that season. One, she wanted to play volleyball for as long as she could, which as a left-side hitter in the traditional game — a lot of wear and tear on her prized right arm — was not a good plan. Two, she found herself spending her free time reading up on nutrition.

Fast forward a few years and she’d successfully tried out for Canada’s beach team, moved to Toronto and now works for Adele Wellness, helping clients eat better and improve their overall health.

“That’s a great part of beach, because I feel you can play for so much longer,” said Nagy. “The longevity in the sport is crazy, there’s so many Olympians in their mid-30’s.”

Though only 5-foot-9, Nagy has proven to be an effective defender, digging up balls and then smashing them down in transition. She’s switching partners in the new year, from Toronto’s Caleigh Cruickshank to Calgarian Camille Saxton. Though points have already begun accumulating towards the 2020 Olympics in Japan, and you only qualify as a team, there’s not much pressure on the new partnership since two other Canadian teams are ranked first and third, respectively, in the world.

“It would take a lot for people to pass them,” said Nagy, noting no country gets to send more than two teams. “Especially with people playing in this sport until they’re 40 years old, there’s not a huge timeline on everything.”

She’s enjoying the ride. And she appreciates where she’s come from. When contacted by the News last month when libero Shaya Suchy passed her on the team’s all-time digs list, Nagy reflected on her time as a Rattler. She remembers it as a great big family, helped by many of the athletes coming from other places and living in close proximity to one another.

“It was such a great community we had there,” she said. “We were all hanging out in residence all the time, it was quite small. I think that was a big part of it, talking to coaches now that have to coach in bigger cities, a lot of players continue living at home, but it takes away from that closeness. You end up hanging out inadvertently all the time.”

Similarly, going home for the holidays is an important time to regroup. She remembers her family coming to France for Christmas which got her out of her funk in that first pro season.

What advice does the nutritionist have for the inevitable festivities taking place this week? It’s to have that glass of Champagne or that cookie.

“I feel like a lot people around the holidays, that I work with at least, have an all-or-nothing mentality,” said Nagy. “They’re like ‘OK, screw it, I’m going to eat whatever I want all week, then start my diet in January.’

“The piece of advice I would give is nothing in life is all or nothing, so the way you eat or your lifestyle shouldn’t be either. If you have two cookies, just be fine with having two cookies. Don’t be like ‘ah screw it, I had two cookies, now I’m going to eat 20 more.'”

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