Volleyball is a unique sport. A completely American invention, it’s the only sport in which you have to pass on every single play, either to your teammates or to opponents. Volleyball setters have one of the most substantial playmaking roles of any position in any sport – they’re exclusively feeders and leaders, and they touch the ball more than any other player on the court.

A redshirt freshman at Duke, Nicole “Nikki” Quinn is the quintessential setter both on and off the court. She’s built a reputation for supporting anyone in her orbit who needs a boost, whether they’re teammates, coaches, or family.

Quinn’s volleyball journey started when she watched her father, Chris, in a high school alumni game. A former volleyball player at Santa Clara, Chris taught his daughter the game in the driveway of the family’s home in Del Mar, California.

“Ironically, the only thing he didn't teach me was setting, and I'm a setter now,” Quinn told 5wins. “So I tell him he can't take too much credit, but I owe my good ball control to him.”

Pickup driveway games would eventually give way to organized volleyball when Quinn was around seven years old, after she watched a friend play in a travel softball game.

“It was this big event, it was at these fields, and there were tons and tons of people and everybody was decked out with their club uniforms, and screaming and yelling,” Chris Quinn said. “And I remember her turning to us saying, ‘If I play volleyball, will people come watch me play?’”

Quinn’s parents started with the basics, first sending her to clinics and small camps to get acclimated to the age group. Within a year, she was playing Under-10s and traveling with her local team.

At this early point in some budding athletes' careers, parents see dollar signs or Division I ambitions. But the Quinns weren’t seduced by the outsized competitiveness that often plague youth sports. Rather, Quinn’s mother employed a more hands-off approach to raising a talented young athlete.

“A lot of it has to be driven by them. Our whole thing was always, if you're not enjoying it, let's not do it,” Jane Quinn told 5wins. “Nikki is very bright. Academics for her were always first. She always knew what she wanted to do.”

But while many young athletes start thinking about college ball before they even hit high school, Quinn didn’t always necessarily view volleyball as part of her path to higher ed.

“It happened naturally. Just my own passion and drive for the sport drove me to eventually the natural progression being collegiate athletics,” she said. “I'd say 14 is probably when it was like, okay, volleyball has a greater purpose than just enjoyment.”

Quinn points to a swath of hyper-talented mentors, especially older players, for helping develop her game at an early age. When she was 12 years old, then-U15 star Ariana White reached back to help coach her at the club level. White would go on to play at Harvard and is now spending her fifth year at Duke, reuniting her with the younger player in which she saw such promise.

Quinn also benefited greatly from the talented roster that played around her while at Torrey Pines High School. Among her teammates were Megan Kraft and Delaynie Maple, who in 2019, became the youngest beach team ever to advance from the qualifier on the AVP Tour at 16 years old.

“I was younger and was in awe of that whole team or the seniors in high school when I was a freshman,” Quinn said.

Quinn is quick to attribute her success to the tools and lessons she gained from each of her mentors – lessons she’s carried with her on every stop of her career.

“Megan really took me under her wing and made me feel so safe and so welcome and made me realize it's okay to make mistakes. Delaynie was such a powerful leader on our team, so confident, so driven, and she really led by example,” Quinn said. “I think that's probably the main thing I took away from them: Being a leader isn't just demonstrating leadership capabilities. It's actually doing it all the time, whether or not people are watching, whether or not you're told by a coach you're a captain right now.”

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Injuries and other challenges arose halfway through Quinn’s high school career. The talent remained, however. When she joined COAST Volleyball Club in San Diego for her U18 season, it helped revitalize her love of the game. The club is run by executive director Ozhan Bahrambeygui, a former coach at Wisconsin and UC Irvine who has been described as “the key architect of junior volleyball in San Diego County.”

“One of Ozhan’s gifts is that he actually gets to know his players – and not just on the court, but as people,” Jane Quinn said. “He knows how to talk to them and coach them to bring out the best in them.”

“He took the time to know me much deeper than any other coach did. And he still texts me today,” Nikki Quinn said. “And while all my teammates are getting texts from their club coaches being like, ‘So are you on the court? Are you doing this?’ He texts me about Star Wars.”

At COAST, Quinn trained under a high-profile setting coach, Gabby Blossom, a former setter at Penn State and the University of San Diego who currently plays professionally in League One Volleyball. To Quinn, Blossom was one of the most influential coaches she had.

“Best setter I've ever seen in person. Just so crazy talented. Such an amazing human as well,” Quinn said.

Blossom was instrumental in helping Quinn hone her approach both to setting and leadership.

“A lot of people in the country can set really good balls, but I think it's how you interact with people and how you lead your team and how you run an offense,” Blossom said. “Your ability to connect with so many different people that come from all different walks of life and … get people to buy in.”

With a fresh approach to her game, Quinn was recruited by Duke, choosing the school because of its academic rigor and reputation in sports. School was always a priority for her – her mother is a retired elementary school teacher and still works as a substitute in Raleigh, where the family now spends the fall supporting their daughter during Duke’s fall season.

The transition to college was relatively seamless, thanks in large part to the presence of veterans on Duke’s roster.

“We had seven fifth-years, I think four of which had been at Duke for all five of those years and were just the best leaders by example,” Quinn said. “I can't think of a single flaw with any of those seven girls and each of them emulates something different that I really look up to and truly admire.”

Duke has had an up-and-down start to their season, losing multiple nonconference games and going 2-2 in the Big Ten/ACC challenge. They’re undefeated in conference play heading into back-to-back matchups with bitter rivals UNC. Quinn has been in and out of the lineup, averaging 5.41 assists per set so far this season.

“She earned my trust over time with her consistent behavior, her consistent commitment, her continuing to get great grades and all that,” said Duke head coach Jolene Nagel.

Away from volleyball, Quinn is majoring in visual arts and mechanical engineering. As a kid, she showed early signs of an interest in engineering; her mother recalls an instance when, at five years old, she took apart her Barbie house and refashioned it into a pulley system strung to the ceiling “so she can ferry people back and forth like a ski lift.”

Quinn once dreamed of becoming a “Disney Imagineer,” designing theme parks and immersive experiences. Now, “I really want to work on just building, creating, product design, just using engineering to make things that are both beautiful and functional,” she said.

That creative urge certainly shines through in her setting. Quinn’s favorite sets are the power-slides on her knees to get to a ball that should probably be a bump. She sees that agility as one of her greatest assets on the court, recognizing that she’s not “by any means the most physically powerful or athletic setter out there.”

“A lot of my style of play revolves around finding the middles, which can be challenging, especially when they're running routes. So I really like to be able to make the daring or the challenging set and just maneuver my body in a way to make a set happen that's not perfect, not in system, not like a great ball overall,” she said.

Quinn's experience with mentors has inspired her to pay it forward in her own ways. She has filmed scouting and recruiting videos for old teammates and hosted college recruiting seminars. Now she works with a company called Athlete to Athlete, a mentorship start-up with over 3,600 athlete mentors.

“It's amazing. I absolutely love my athletes,” Quinn said, noting one in particular, a young player named Eva. “I've been with her for close to six months. And it's just super gratifying. At first I gave her little assignments, like, let's try to touch a ball four times a week.”

“You don't realize how people look up to you the same way that you looked up to older girls when you were younger,” Quinn added.

Despite her talents on the court, Quinn’s greatest contribution might be her mentoring off of it. “They talk a lot about visualization techniques, making new friends, what it's like going into high school and being a freshman for the first time,” Noelle Schiller, Director of Operations at Athlete to Athlete, told 5wins. “Maybe they're even talking about college recruiting already.”

“It's not just athletic mentorship. It's a human being helping another human being out on all the craziness that life and growing up has to offer,” Quinn said.

The positivity is contagious, be it with her mentee’s or with her older Duke teammates. Kerry Keefe has seen the entire arc of Quinn’s time at Duke, from the official visit to her on court debut.

“She's genuinely one of the most thoughtful people I know. We do a lot of Trader Joe's dessert nights or just drives and we'll just drive and talk for hours,” said Keefe, “She's one of those people that you don't really ever get sick of.”

It’s that mentality that informs Quinn’s approach to volleyball, school, and her relationships with others. It’s about balancing healthy competition with the need for support.

“The best mentality is to compete with yourself and to cheer for everyone around you,” she said.