Small Thriving On and Off the Pitch as a Wake Forest Student Athlete
7/19/2024 10:27:00 AM | Women's Soccer
As a 2021 class prospect from Canada, Nikayla Small's recruitment to Wake Forest women's soccer took its share of twists and turns.
Coach Tony da Luz traveled to watch Small play encountering weather so horrific the Wake Forest skipper has jokingly vowed to never return to Canada in January again. Then the day Small was scheduled to visit Wake Forest, basically everything in the world shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Recruiting was so hard during that time, but I think that is what was special," Small said. "Tony actually came to the club that I played for at the time, which is the Ontario Rex or the National Development Center, and essentially he came in the worst time to come in Canada. He came in January, which is always cold, always snowing. So he basically came when it was one of our worst snowstorms to come watch me play.
"Then I was supposed to go on a visit in 2020 on March 13th, exactly when COVID essentially happened and it got canceled."
Despite the numerous hiccups, da Luz found ways to stay engaged with Small and continue the recruitment.
"He sent me videos and we FaceTimed," she said. "He kind of just showed me around what I was going to see if I didn't come. Ultimately, it came down to what school academically was going to be the best fit for me. I always knew I wanted to go into business and obviously Wake Forest Business School is amazing. In terms of athletics, who doesn't want to play in the ACC?
"That kind of made my decision a little easier, even though I haven't visited the school. It was a little scary in the sense that I didn't know what to expect, but it worked out for the best and I'm still here today."
Small found her stride right away, playing in 20 games as a freshman, earning All-ACC Freshman Team honors.
"Coming in, I didn't really know what to expect with college athletics," she said. "I think right away, our team is very close knit, and we have a class that grew to 18. I genuinely can have a conversation with anyone in my class. I feel like we all have this great bond and great relationship with these friends that I'm going to have for a lifetime, and I do truly love every one of them and even everyone on my team.
"I think from there we just had a really great culture. Freshman year I did play quite a bit, and that was also pretty fun just to be on the field and play and share those memories. We did have a really good season that year. We went to the third round of the ACC's and we beat Duke, which was a highlight of my career. Then we went to the second round of the NCAA's and we lost to Michigan. Overall, that was a great season."
Between her freshman and sophomore seasons at Wake Forest, Small sustained an injury that worsened while playing for the Canadian National Team in the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Costa Rica.
"Regardless of the injury, it was a great experience," Small said. "We got to stay in the hotel with a bunch of other teams, and although we didn't mingle, it was cool just to see all the different international teams and grow closer to your teammates. We were there for probably four weeks, and also to explore Costa Rica. That was also very nice, and it was just the atmosphere and the seriousness of it, and it just felt so real and it was such a cool experience, honestly.
"I injured myself more when we were playing against France, but I could say I did have five minutes against France, so no one can take that away from me."
She missed her entire sophomore season with the Demon Deacons.
"At the end of the day I felt like that helped me grow because it put life into perspective in the sense that anything can be taken away from you," Small said. "So going forward now, I really do play with the mindset that this could be your last game.
"Although injuries suck, it did help me find myself outside of soccer, and then it made my connection to soccer a lot deeper and more closer. So I hated being injured, but I don't regret that it happened. And then junior year, another good season for us. I think senior year is going to be a really great year for us, and I'm so excited for what our team could do."
While playing in a summer league in Pennsylvania, Small is working an internship with Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association.
"It's a really small company, so luckily for me, I know everyone in the office," Small said. "Essentially I do a little bit of everything, which I like because I am a business major. I major in business enterprise management, and I have a concentration in business law. So it really helps me just to get the whole experience of how to run a business and learn every individual part of what goes into running a successful business."
"It's really flexible with my summer league team. They're very understanding that I'm a student athlete and what I'm doing is also hard in itself."
Small led the Demon Deacons with seven assists last season, playing in all 18 contests. She was 57th in the nation and eighth in the ACC in assists per game.
"I want to continue to grow as a player and hopefully get back to the national team one day, but continue to grow within myself technically, tactically, physically and mentally," Small said. "I think this spring I did push myself on all those fronts, trying to be 1% better each day.
"And then I feel like as a senior, I need to be more vocal as a leader, I am quite a quiet person. I'm more of a lead by example and don't say too much. And I think being a senior now, I think I really need to vocalize what I want to say and just be that kind of presence on the field vocally as well as lead by example, because at the end of the day, as a team, the more we communicate, the more we're going to be on the same page and the better we'll be."
After college, Small will likely chase twin pursuits of turning pro and working toward becoming a lawyer.
"I do have aspirations to go pro, so that's kind of my mindset," she said. "I also do want to be a lawyer as well, so I am in the works of when and where I want to take my LSAT and then as well as my pro career and moving forward into the future. I think balancing out the two, I am very academic focused as well as sports focused, and I do want to succeed in both.
"So just making sure I keep the mindset that I can achieve anything I can put my mind to. And with these two goals that I have in mind, I want them to coincide kind of perfectly so that I can achieve them both at the same time."
