The phone rings and Maya Riddlesprigger feels a sense of introverted dread. It’s the kind of dread that — as former Sports Illustrated writer Rick Reilly once wrote about notoriously reticent golfer Fred Couples — makes Riddlesprigger hate answering the phone because someone could be on the other end.
“For me, I see the phone ring and I’d rather have it go to voicemail than answer it,” said Riddlesprigger, a junior middle blocker on Cal State Fullerton’s volleyball team. “I get nervous with class presentations and I’ve always had trouble making eye contact with people. Even on Zoom calls, I get so nervous that I end up stuttering.”
Now, reconcile that Maya Riddlesprigger — the 6-foot, introverted occupant of her own shell — with the Maya Riddlesprigger currently holding court as the president of Cal State Fullerton’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.
Square the circle of the Maya Riddlesprigger who feels that queasy feeling in her stomach when she looks into a camera with the Maya Riddlesprigger who played an integral role on a three-day NCAA symposium on diversity and inclusion. That Maya Riddlesprigger reached out to coaches and Titans’ athletes, inviting them to take part. That Maya Riddlesprigger organized, spoke and handled social media for the virtual symposium.
Finally, equate the Maya Riddlesprigger who still needs to internally push herself to talk to strangers with the Maya Riddlesprigger who organized a seven-week fundraising campaign for the Fresno Chapter of the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society that raised $33,000. That Maya Riddlesprigger put together a team of friends, went out and put together four individual fundraisers.
She contacted businesses for auction items, talked to coaches at her high school to set up an elementary school sports camps, reached out to a local winery for a wine tasting and set up a Charity Buzz auction featuring a meet-and-greet with Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo as the prize.
More on him later.
But that auction alone raised $13,000 while bringing Riddlesprigger the chapter’s Community Engagement Award for collecting donations from local businesses for the end-of-campaign gala dinner. It bears mentioning here this took place in 2018, when that Maya Riddlesprigger was a high school senior.
“I feel like it helped me grow as a person,” she said. “I showed me that it’s important to give back. I was doing something bigger than myself. I was able to give back in a tremendous way and I was doing my part to help stop blood cancer. I felt like I was doing something good and I was doing something that matters. I was doing something I cared about.
“On the professional side, it helped me reach out to other people and helped me grow comfortable talking to other people. I was growing connections while making me more comfortable getting out of my comfort zone. I’m still working on being comfortable talking to other people. Here, I had to reach out to people, send them emails and talk to them on the phone. It was a good way to help me do something I’m not normally used to doing.”
Riddlesprigger forced herself to get used to doing things like this because when she arrived at Fullerton in 2018, she knew nobody. Being the valedictorian at Fresno Central High School illustrates Riddlesprigger isn’t a slow learner. So carries a 3.63 GPA as a Marketing/Entertainment-Hospitality Management major in Cal State Fullerton’s demanding business school. Before the pandemic, Riddlesprigger was on pace to graduate in three years. She pushed it back to get some internships under her belt.
This explains how Riddlesprigger understood she’d have to come out of her shell. She volunteered to go to a SAAC meeting last year, got hooked and before she knew it, was running for president. Meanwhile, Riddlesprigger joined the School of Business Student Advisory Board. Again, before she knew it, Riddlesprigger was running the board’s social media committee.
“This was my way to meet new people, because other than volleyball at Fullerton, I don’t have a way to meet new people and make those connections that will help me grow. I want to get more involved,” she said.
She’s had more time to get involved. Riddlesprigger hasn’t stepped on a volleyball court since last April. The Big West canceled all fall sports, meaning Riddlesprigger’s junior season vanished. Instead, Riddlesprigger kept up her conditioning while applying for internships, diving further into her organizations and adding an African-American Studies minor.
“It’s been hard. Everyone lost a year and it’s been hard knowing that basketball got to play and the fall sports didn’t get their chance to play,” she said. “I took it as an opportunity to look toward the future. I spent time applying for internships I couldn’t get because of the pandemic last year and trying to better myself so I’m ready when I’m done with volleyball. We took a step back from volleyball, which gives me more time to prepare for life once volleyball is over. I caught up on the rest of my life.”
That included seeing how an A-list celebrity handles the limelight and attention. Riddlesprigger doesn’t need to go far for the lesson. All she needs is to visit her older sister, Mariah, who lives with Antetokounmpo and their soon-to-be 1-year-old son, Liam.
You know Antetokounmpo as the two-time reigning NBA Most Valuable Player: a 7-foot, do-everything forward for the Bucks generally considered one of the top three players in the league. That do-everything, Swiss Army Knife-skill set earned him the nickname “the Greek Freak.” Riddlesprigger knows him as her big sister’s boyfriend, a member of the family and an opener of doors Riddlesprigger never imagined.
For example, she went to Universal Studios with the couple last summer. There were no lines. Not for the Greek Freak and his family. Instead, they got a private tour. Riddlesprigger joked that having the NBA MVP in the family “has its perks.”
“This is interesting. I think interesting is the perfect word,” Riddlesprigger laughed. “It’s interesting because what are the odds that would happen? When they first started dating and my sister told us, I said, ‘I have no clue who this guy is.’ I went from not knowing who this guy is to spending holidays with him and seeing exactly how big this guy is.
“They’re going to celebrate their five-year anniversary this year and I’ve seen their relationship grow and I’ve seen how he’s grown into the player he is … We see him as family. We treat him as family. He’s family to us, not a superstar.”
Being the quick learner she is, Riddlesprigger watches how Antetokounmpo handles the attention. She marvels at how he politely tells dinner-intruding autograph seekers he’ll sign after he’s finished. Unlike the rest of us, she doesn’t have to imagine what it’s like answering the phone when you’re one of the best basketball players in the world. She’s had a front-row seat.
Now, Riddlesprigger also has a front-row seat to finding out what it’s like out of her own shell. Slowly, she’s enjoying the view. The people she engages enjoy it, too, because when Riddlesprigger engages you, there’s usually a productive, intelligent conversation following.
Even, perhaps, when the phone rings.
Did you know…?
Riddlesprigger was a three-time All-CIF volleyball player at Fresno Central High School. She racked up 694 career kills and 409 career blocks, was a two-time Defensive MVP and was named the Senior Female Athlete of the Year at Central. Riddlesprigger was also Senior Class President and ASB Sports Commissioner.
She said it:
Riddlesprigger, on what brought her to Cal State Fullerton, “For me, No. 1, I never had a black coach. I never had a coach who looked like me, so that was very special to me. No. 2, (Ashley Preston) was like my first major female coach. I had a female coach when I was 12, but otherwise, I had male coaches. So, I had a coach who resembles me and who is a female. Then, I knew about their business program, which is great. I fit with the volleyball team and I fit with the academic portion as well. I’m very happy I went this route.”
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