Ja Nina Lee's HOF Speech Video

NORFOLK, Va., March 21, 2018—Ja Nina Lee has been speechless recently as her induction into the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Hall of Fame coincides with a bout with laryngitis.
 
Receiving word last fall that she had been selected for the Hall left Lee, a record-setting middle hitter on Morgan State volleyball teams in the md-1990s, in a similar state.
 
"I was in complete shock," said Lee. "I was speechless. I had just been inducted to the Morgan State Hall of Fame (in 2016), and that was beyond words. During my time at Morgan, I had no idea at the time that what I was doing would amount to the honors and recognition I'm receiving. I've been speechless, which is the direct opposite of when I played. I was very vocal."
 
Lee joined Howard quarterback Jay Walker, former South Carolina State women's basketball athlete, tennis and volleyball coach and Director of Athletics Charlene Johnson, South Carolina State defensive lineman Chartric Darby and Bethune-Cookman safety Nick Collins in the 2018 MEAC Hall of Fame Class. The class was enshrined Thursday, March 8 during an awards brunch at the Norfolk (Va.) Sheraton Waterside Hotel.
 
Lee is among the most dominant middle hitters ever to play in the MEAC. She was Second Team All-MEAC as a freshman; she was first team All-MEAC her sophomore and senior seasons, the Most Outstanding Performer in the 1995 conference tournament and a member of the All-Tournament Team her senior year. She led the MEAC in blocks her sophomore season, and Morgan State won three conference championships during her career. She ended her career with a school-record 512 blocks, a school-record 235 service aces and 921 digs.
 
In her spare time, she was a pitcher and catcher on the Lady Bears softball team.
 
Lee was a dominant performer in volleyball and a consummate teammate. She never thought about her statistics or personal accomplishments. Team goals always came first.
 
"You want to be champions and win the MEAC," she said. "I never approached it in the sense that I'm breaking records and this is going to be a career high. It was never an individual thing. What I achieved on the court, I couldn't have achieved without my teammates. It's not an individual sport. I never looked at it from that perspective. To me, it was always we were together as one. We had a common goal of achieving success. It was never where I went out there to get an ace because I need my career to be this many aces, or I need this block to be in the record book. It's still mindboggling. I went out there and played with all my heart. I played with all my heart for my team. It was never for me."
 
A cruel twist of fate led Lee to Morgan State. She was one the top volleyball players in the state following her junior year at Fox Lane High School in Bedford Hills, N.Y.
 
Several of the top college programs in the country had recruited her. However, she was set to attend the University of North Carolina, whose coach was friends with her high school coach. Lee "loosely" committed to signing with the Tar Heels during the summer before her senior season.
 
That's when fate stepped in. She dislocated her left knee playing in the prestigious Empire State Games that August and sat out her senior season. North Carolina backed off and withdrew its scholarship offer. The Tar Heels, fearing Lee wouldn't fully recover, wanted her to redshirt her freshman year. However, she was uncomfortable with that idea. The following May, Lee returned to the court with her coach and a setter and made a video of her running basic drills, hitting and blocking.
 
She sent the video to a number of schools, including several in the MEAC, hoping one of them would bite. Morgan State head coach Ramona Riley-Bozier took the bait and invited Lee for a campus visit. Riley-Bozier offered Lee a scholarship based solely on what she had seen on video.
 
"That was a blessing," Lee said.
 
It was a leap of faith on both sides. Lee knew next to nothing about Morgan State. Her only knowledge of the school was compliments of The Cosby Show on TV. She had seen Bill Cosby wearing a Morgan State sweatshirt on one episode. Lee couldn't research Morgan State on the internet because it didn't exist at that time. She had to rely on word of mouth, but that didn't help much. Morgan State wasn't on the radar of the 3,101 citizens of Bedford Hills, a hamlet in the town of Bedford in Westchester County, N.Y., whose black population is 5.9 percent.
 
"I realized it was a D-I school, and it had a competitive program," Lee said. "It had my major (broadcast journalism) as well. I said, 'Hey, let's give it a shot."'
 
It's a decision she has never regretted.
 
"It was life-changing," said Lee, one of only seven blacks in her high school graduating class. "Going to Morgan was the total opposite of what I experienced growing up. I wouldn't change one thing about it. It was something that I definitely needed to experience. I was always the one, maybe two of us on the volleyball team or the only one on the softball team. I was class president all four years in high school, which was unheard of. I like to make sure everyone was comfortable. Stepping out of my comfort zone helped me grow. That's what Morgan did for me. I met my husband (Nashad Warfield) there, so I wouldn't change anything about it."
 
Despite not having played competitively for a year, Lee didn't miss a beat as she transitioned from high school volleyball to playing on the college level.
 
"For me, it was second nature," she said. "It was like riding a bike. It was what I did. I knew I had to learn a new system and new teammates. It was just the heart and the passion and the love of the sport that did it for me. I was so blessed. I was going nowhere. I had injured my knee. I didn't think it was the end. A lot of people said it was the end, but I never thought it was the end. I just knew I had to work harder. That's what I did. The first couple of times in May when I made that video and was jumping and doing drills, I was a little hesitant. But once I set foot on Morgan's campus, I knew this was what I was here to do. It came naturally to take off from where I left off, but also to grow in the sport that I had grown in for years and loved for years."
 
Interestingly, Lee's best memory of her time at Morgan State isn't about any her standout performances or record-setting accomplishment. In fact, it isn't about her at all. Her fondest memory is of the 1997 NCAA Tournament, during which Morgan State became the first HBCU to compete in the event. Lee was on the roster, but she missed the entire season after tearing the ACL in her right knee playing with the Lady Bears softball team the previous spring. She had hit a line drive and was running to first base. She never made it; the knee gave out, and her softball and volleyball seasons were done.
 
But indicative of Lee's selflessness, she cheered her volleyball teammates on from the sidelines as they won the MEAC championship and made history with their NCAA appearance.
 
"It was the most heartwarming, fulfilling experience of my years at Morgan," she said. "It was so humbling. This was my team that I had played with for three years. I had seen every bump and bruise; every scrape; every victory; every ace. I had watched this team, and I had been with that team. Watching from the sidelines was a humbling, exhilarating and exciting experience – and memorable – because they played their hearts out and they made history. It was one of those things where you watch other people receive this huge honor. It was difficult, but I was so excited at the same time. It was hard to watch but I had already experienced it with my high school team. It was sort of like history repeating itself."
 
Lee came back her senior season and was as good as ever. The Lady Bears repeated as MEAC champions and she was named First Team All-MEAC and chosen to the conference's All-Tournament Team.
 
Lee put her broadcast journalism degree to use after graduating. She was a page, a highly coveted position, at NBC News working in production for a year; she was also involved with Dateline and the 2002 Olympics. However, she suffered burnout from working in that environment in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2002, working 17 straight days without an off day while logging as many as 12 hours a day.
 
"After 9-11, I wanted to do something that was not as stressful," she said. "I love the news; I'm a news junky."
 
Lee wanted to remain at NBC, so she decided to move to the entertainment side, where she worked with the late night talk show Last Call With Carson Daly. After a couple of years, Lee's desire "to be close to the action" led her to become a make-up artist at NBC, and she "was right there with the talent and was the last person they see before they go on the air."
 
She worked on The Today Show, The Tonight Show, Saturday Night Live any other show that aired on NBC. From there, she developed her own clientele, which included Whitney Houston for whom she did makeup on the Nothing But Love Asian and European tour. Lee's celebrity clients have included former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and the Bush, and she currently works with TV shows Law & Order: SVU, Access Hollywood and The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.
 
"I really love what I do," Lee said. "I love working with people. I guess it kind of came full circle."