Norah Sis and Kendra Wait hoped to break a streak stretching back decades. But in a battle of two top-10 teams, Creighton University’s volleyball team lost another one to the University of Nebraska.
Creighton head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth put it bluntly in a post-match press conference: “We’re mad, OK?”
But Sis and Wait — two seniors and likely All-Americans for the Bluejays — didn’t have much time to stew on the Sept. 10 upset that wasn’t. Both had to be up before dawn for their 10-hour clinical instruction shifts at an Omaha hospital.
Much like they did on the court all season long, Sis and Wait arrived at their nursing shifts eager to contribute.
“Ready to work and smiling,” said Amy Abbott, a professor at Creighton and registered nurse. “I joke about them (being) sweet as pie to their patients, but bad mamba jambas on the (volleyball) court.”
Creighton’s nurses-in-training are notable outliers in an era where the “student” in student-athlete feels increasingly like an afterthought — as once-regional athletic conferences morph into country-crossing groupings of unassociated schools and money flows to some athletes in the form of name, image and likeness.
No other top tier volleyball programs appear to have any nursing students on their rosters — let alone nursing students with the potential to play professionally like Sis and Wait.
Recent offers to play in the pros presented both women with a difficult decision: Do they pursue the careers they’ve exhaustively trained for or take a chance to continue playing?
The promise and pressure has fueled some difficult nights, both players said. But that decision is not the most pressing challenge on the horizon.
The Bluejays, after compiling a 29-2 record and landing a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament, want to reach the Final Four.
The morning after
The Huskers came out strong Sept. 10 in a raucous Devaney Center, taking the first two sets. Despite it being the first time the two teams had faced off while ranked in the top 10, the match appeared headed for the same result of the previous 20 — another Nebraska victory.
But the Bluejays clawed back. They took the next two sets, pushing the Huskers to a fifth set and quieting the crowd in the process. It felt personal.
“I have always grown up being a Nebraska (Cornhuskers) hater,” Sis, a 6-foot-1 outside hitter from Papillion-La Vista High School, said two years earlier with a disappointing freshman performance against Nebraska still fresh in her memory.
The Huskers held on and handed the Bluejays one of their two losses this season — the fewest of any regular season in Bluejays program history.
Afterward, Nebraska coach John Cook credited his team for squashing a comeback by a talented opponent.
“Creighton’s a great team and they got two special players in Kendra (Wait) and Norah Sis,” he said. “Those guys are really, really good and do a great job of leading that team.”
When the post-match news conferences concluded, the players chose either a box of pizza or a salad to take on the bus back to Omaha. The team departed from the Devaney Center that night around 10:30.
Sis fell asleep between 12:30 or 1 a.m. before waking up to a 4:45 a.m. alarm. She reported to her 6:30 a.m. clinical by 6:15.
“The lack of sleep, I’ve done that before, but I think, too, we were just still a little sad about the loss,” Sis recalled.
The two tended to patients in the hospital’s intensive care unit that day. And they “challenged themselves to seek out new learning opportunities and soaked up every minute of what they were doing,” Abbott said.
Some days are harder than others.
“Some days, I’m definitely in the thick of it and I’m like, ‘How am I surviving right now?’” Wait admitted.
But, she added, “It’s just the competitive nature that, honestly, both Norah and I have. In our brains, it’s not a ‘Oh, I just want to get by or I just have to get through this.’ I am such a competitor and I want to do well in everything that I do.”
Creighton is the only NCAA Division I team ranked in the top 10 of the coaches poll with nursing majors on its volleyball roster, according to a Flatwater Free Press review of team rosters.
“Very few top-20 programs around the country will allow you to do nursing,” Bernthal Booth, the longtime Creighton coach, told Nebraska Public Media during the 2023 season.
Besides Sis and Wait, there are also two other Bluejay nursing majors: 6-foot-4 sophomore hitter Ava TeStrake and 6-foot-3 middle blocker Kiara Reinhardt.
Reinhardt, a graduate student, recently announced she’s returning for a sixth volleyball season — a possibility thanks to disruptions early in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Having played on the Creighton team two years ago that also pushed Nebraska to five sets before losing, Reinhardt sympathized with Sis and Wait.
“I had a clinical the day of that game. From 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., I went to that, then ran over to CHI (Health Center) from the hospital,” Reinhardt said. “I ate and played the game.”
She was then back at the hospital the next day at 6 a.m.
“It’s so overwhelming at times,” she said. “You think you’re not going to be able to do it.”
Reinhardt leaned on Naomi Hickman, who played 142 matches for the Bluejays before becoming an emergency room nurse at CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center – Bergan Mercy, for guidance early on.
Now Reinhardt serves a similar role for Sis and Wait.
“She literally lives right across the hall from me,” said Sis. “The amount of times that I’ll go over and ask her questions about clinical assignments and what I’m supposed to do for things, it’s been so helpful.”
Changing landscape
Sis and Wait’s playing careers have overlapped with massive changes in college athletics. Continued conference realignment has resulted in odd pairings. West coast schools have joined both the Big Ten, a conference that historically consisted of teams in the Midwest, and the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The Big East, Creighton’s conference since 2013, hasn’t experienced a similar expansion, but still requires some longer trips. This season Creighton played in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Illinois and Washington, D.C., along with closer-to-home matches in Colorado and Kansas.
In 2021 the NCAA cleared the way for student-athletes to make money off their personal brand through name, image and likeness, commonly referred to as NIL. Then earlier this year, in an effort to settle a class action lawsuit over compensation, parties put forward an agreement that would allow Division 1 schools to directly pay athletes for NIL.
At Creighton, Sis and Wait navigated the demands of being a Division 1 athlete along with a rigorous academic schedule.
For Wait, it’s not just her competitive nature that fuels her — she believes it’s in her DNA to care.
There were signs during Wait’s childhood in Gardner, Kansas, that she wanted to be a nurse. She took great pride in caring for her twin dolls, Hannah and Rose.
“That was literally my favorite thing to do growing up: Carry my babies around, playing house, playing doctor,” said Wait, who also developed the skills to become a 5-foot-10 setter. “It was always, “Oh, Hannah’s sick. I need to give her a shot.’”
Wait received interest from notable programs, including the University of Kansas, where her older sister helped take the team to its first NCAA Women’s Volleyball Final Four in 2015. But she wouldn’t have the same opportunity to pursue nursing. She chose Creighton.
Now Wait and Sis are on the verge of becoming only the third Creighton duo in school history, in any sport, to be named All-Americans.
“She went to a great place and is having a great career,” Kansas coach Ray Bechard said of Wait, the player he attempted to recruit.
The crystal ball
Beyond this season lies great uncertainty with Sis and Wait.
Both will be ready to be nurses, but they also have skills to be successful professional volleyball players. Sis was the third overall pick by the Orlando Valkyries in the Pro Volleyball Federation draft on Nov. 25. Wait was chosen by the Omaha Supernovas in the fifth round.
They have options — and difficult decisions.
During the fall semester break, Wait’s future and rigorous schedule weighed on her. She called both her mom and sister, Cassie Valentine, the same day.
When Valentine got the 10 p.m. call from her normally early-to-bed sister, she remembered thinking, “It’s the first time she’s had a minute to breathe, to actually think about what comes next.”
That’s exactly what Wait said she was contemplating.
“Because it is senior year, and you’re starting to experience all the lasts with volleyball and then school was demanding at that time,” said Wait. “It was getting difficult to manage, and so I think just leaning on your support systems was what I really needed in that moment.”
But even while sorting through the moving parts, both appreciate the unique position they’ve put themselves in.
“It’s really cool that that’s an option. We might be able to do both,” said Sis.
Wait added, “I get to do two things that I absolutely love.”
Wait’s goal is to work in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), but she knows the degree of difficulty to get there.
Sis has grown interested in working in pediatrics because of the patients’ age range and various issues requiring medical attention.
“It was all different every day.”
Another clash of the titans?
With the Sunday announcement of the NCAA tournament bracket, it’s possible the Bluejays and Huskers could face off again — but not until the Final Four in Louisville on Dec. 19.
Creighton barely missed the chance of landing a No. 1 seed, which would’ve given the Bluejays the possibility of hosting a regional semi and final.
“When you compare them to the four or five teams above them, they did not have top-10 wins,” explained Danielle Josetti, the selection committee chair.
As a No. 2 seed for the first time in program history, the Bluejays will need to hold serve in the first two rounds on campus at D.J. Sokol Arena, then likely will travel to Penn State for the second weekend.
It seems a long way off, but the possibility of a rematch against the Huskers still appeals to Sis.
“We think that would be a really fun matchup. That much more that deep into the tournament,” she said.
Even Abbott, who’s been at Creighton for 29 years, has recently become a fan, attending matches and watching live streams when she’s off-duty.
“It’s been fun and I think I’m more enamored because of their dedication to the sport, but they also know they’re there to become nurses,” said Abbott. “They don’t minimize any of their responsibilities on either side of it.”
