McKenzie Hall’s sun-bleached hair contrasts with her tanned skin like a little bit of her California childhood shining through.
“My whole life was volleyball,” Hall said. “Then in an instant it disappeared.”
She grew up playing the sport in San Diego. Her voice lowers when she tells about the ruptured disc that ended her dream of playing the sport at Ole Miss.
Although intimidated at first by a student culture so different from what she was used to in California, Hall said she has found best friends outside of sports, thanks to her sorority, Kappa Delta, and would not have experienced such friendship if were not for the injury.
After visiting Oxford her junior year to tour the athletic facilities, she knew Ole Miss is where she wanted to spend her college years, but at the time, she assumed it would be for volleyball.
Hall was set on this plan until last December—one month before her final recruiting visit—when she injured herself playing the game she had devoted her life to. Following the injury was a long healing process and news that the surgery to fix the ruptured disc was not a guarantee, which worried her.
A decision had to be made whether or not she could make herself love Ole Miss, a school thousands of miles from home, without volleyball as a safety blanket.
She decided to take the risk.
“Without volleyball, I knew I would need something to get involved in,” Hall said. “So, I surmised sorority life would be a good fit.”
Hall stressed how much this has been a substitute for what volleyball has been to her, even though most of the girls are from the South.
“McKenzie is shy at first, but once you get to know her, she is this crazy awesome person with a lot of energy and happiness. She is just a lot of fun to be around,” said Ally Arrigo, a junior Kappa Delta, who met Hall before formal recruitment.
“It is like I have 140 ‘teammates,’” Hall explained.
Although she stresses that she wishes the injury never occurred, she openly admits she knew it was God’s plan all along.
Giving up volleyball was not the only obstacle Hall had to overcome in her journey to Ole Miss, understanding the South was another. Southern colloquialisms, she said, are a culture shock.
“I think the hardest part about going to school in Oxford is being so far from a beach,” she said. “At home, if I was bored, a few of us would go to the beach, but here a ton of people hang out in large settings all the time, and I love that inclusiveness.”
Southern hospitality and the passion for anything and everything local is something she never experienced back in California.
“I was once told ‘Wherever you are, be all there,’ and I have tried to live by that every single day,” Hall said.
