Theresa Wray
When Bea Ramos was seven years old she picked up her first volleyball in her hometown of Davao in the Philippines and fell in love with the game.
What she didn’t know was that 12 years later she would be playing as a defensive specialist for the Pierce College Brahmas and would place second in Western State Conference Championship, the highest finish in Pierce’s history of women’s volleyball.
On Dec. 3, the third game of the women’s volleyball championship, the Brahmas beat the Sacramento City Panthers in a 2-1/2 hour match that tied the fifth game three times.
According to Ramos, the Brahmas rallied to get 6 points and moved the knotted score from 8-8 to 8-14.
Two sophomores, Kristin Gorman and Ashley Murray, made five kills and clinched the match, which advanced them to the championship game.
“We were exhausted after the Sacramento game, but we just kept eating our bananas and power bars.
“We were all crying and hugging each other,” said Ramos, 19.
“Our goal all year was to make it to the championship and we were there.
“It was the best feeling I ever had and reinforced why I love this game.”
When Head Coach Nabil Mardini first saw Ramos playing volleyball at Chatsworth High School as an outside hitter, he was impressed by her passion for the game.
After seeing the Brahmas play and listening to the coach’s philosophy, Ramos knew that she wanted to play for Pierce.
“The coach is one-of-a-kind,” said Ramos.
“He is different from every coach I ever played for because he pushes you to the limit and makes you want to work hard to achieve your goals.”
According to Mardini, the journey to the championship game requires so much physical and mental energy that even Pierce Athletics Director Bob Lyons refers to the team as the “Marines.”
“They played five matches in less than 48 hours, then had only an hour to rest before jumping into the championship game against Orange Coast College,” said Mardini.
“I’m so proud of them because they worked really hard.
“They were committed to doing what is almost humanly impossible. They refused to give up.”
Mardini has been coaching the Brahmas for six years and also coaches 24 other teams at the Santa Monica Beach Club.
He believes that his job is not only to make his teams work hard, but to make them love it.
He tells all of his players to avoid taking the “easy left” and encourages them take to the “hard right” in every aspect of their lives.
“When I’m tired in the morning and don’t want to go to class, I do it anyway,” said Gorman, 21, who is studying kinesiology at Pierce.
“The coach calls this ‘taking the hard right.’
“I would rather take the ‘easy left’ and stay in bed, especially after a hard game, but you have to do the right thing and sometimes that’s hard.”
Ramos will leave Pierce after the spring semester in 2007 and plans to transfer to UCLA’s nursing program.
The principles she learned while playing volleyball at Pierce are something that she vows to take with her and apply to the rest of her life.
“Nabil was always our coach on the court who taught us discipline and the benefits of working hard,” said Ramos.
“He was also like a dad off the court who would call us on the weekends to make sure we were studying for our other classes.
“I will miss him and the team.”
According to Mardini, the most memorable moment all season was looking at his players’ faces during the championship game and seeing their level of commitment and determination.
“The team slogan is ‘Brahmas are rare people,’ ” said Mardini.
“This team is made up of rare individuals who chose to do the impossible and never give up. They take the ‘hard right.’ ”
Bea Ramos, 19, began playing volleyball in the Philippines, before coming to the United States and Pierce, where she helped with Brahmas to their first Western State Conference finals game. (Amit Sharabi)
