When Nana Meriwether transferred to the UCLA volleyball team as a sophomore, she was a shy girl with “goofy” footwork, the sort of player then-head coach Andy Banachowski called “a little (OK, a lot) bashful.”

Neither Banachowski nor any of Meriwether’s new teammates would have expected that, eight years later, the lanky middle blocker would be standing on stage, accepting the second-place crown in the Miss USA pageant.

“At first there were a lot of questions, like ‘Why would I lower myself to that?’” she said.

“But doing pageants has definitely been the way I gained the most confidence in my life. I stood in front of 10 million people (at Miss USA) – there’s no way to do that without knowing who you are.”

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For more photos of Nana visit her profile.