GALION — On January 23, Galion High School’s Nicole Thomas signed to continue her academic and volleyball career at Heidelberg University.
“I chose Heidelberg because we’ve done a lot of camps with them throughout the years, so each year of high school I’ve had camp with them, and I’ve always liked how they run things,” Thomas said. “I have a familiarization with their coach, especially since (Coach Jaime Valentine’s) daughters went there, and it really made me want to at least test out the campus. When I went to the campus, I completely fell in love with it because of all the things they do. I just feel like it’s going to be a good fit.”
Thomas said that Heidelberg and Galion are somewhat similar in style because a lot of the drills that the Tigers do at volleyball practice come from Heidelberg.
Thomas was the libero for Galion, and she hopes to take a strong defensive background to the next level of play.
“A lot of coaches will tell you that defense wins games because you can’t have a hit if you don’t have a pass,” Thomas said. “I am just hoping to bring a steady backbone to defense when I go.”
Thomas said that she feels like Galion has prepared her for the next level with volleyball and academics because of how hard they push students at Galion.
“Each teacher tells you that it’s not going to be like this in college — you need to make sure all of your stuff is in because it’s not going to be the same,” Thomas said. “They really prepare you for it to be harder, especially here where they do an 80/20 scale where your tests are worth 80% of your grade, so you need to make sure you know what’s going on. They really prepare you well for college here.”
Nicole currently studies criminal justice at Pioneer but will study nursing in college. She originally wanted to study criminology but realized that she would have to move to a big city and that isn’t something she wants to do. Her goal is to become nurse in a jail so that she is still using her criminal justice background and can stay closer to home.