FAIRFAX, Va. (DC News Now) — Her name is Nalani Kaysia, and she has found a new sense of motivation to play basketball: her daughter Xéla.
In the spring of 2024, George Mason women’s basketball forward, Nalani Kaysia, welcomed her daughter Xéla into the world.
“When I found out, I was immediately happy,” said Kaysia, a graduate student and former high school basketball star at Sidwell Friends. “But it took a second to say ‘Oh. What am I going to do next? What’s going to happen with basketball? What’s going to happen with school?'”
During her pregnancy in 2023, Nalani redshirted the basketball season after playing just five games. Still, her future with basketball was up in the air.
“I talked to my mom to know what it looks like, because my mom also had me when she was in college and an athlete,” said Kaysia. I knew that days would be long, they’d be hard, but I knew that being a mom is something I wanted to do and I also wanted to continue to be an athlete as well.”
With the support of her family, and her teammates and coaches, Nalani has been able to balance being a mother to her daughter Xéla and be a Division I athlete once again.
“My teammates were always there supporting me,” said Kaysia. “Days I wasn’t feeling so hot, they tried to lift my spirits. They were just there for me.”
“She was blessed with the opportunity to give birth to Xéla,” said George Mason women’s basketball head coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis. “She’s been able to accept her role as a mom first knowing that she has a village to help her with everything else.”
Since her return to the court, Nalani has picked up where she left off, averaging 8.5 points and 9.5 rebounds per game (4th in the A-10), which are on pace to be her career best averages.
Her new motivation? Her daughter Xéla.
“She communicates often that Xéla’s watching,” said Blair-Lewis. “I want to be great because Xéla is watching. Her focus is to make sure that she is that example for Xéla. She knows that Xéla is watching, and what’s really more important than that.”
“I think motherhood has really brought a lot to Nalani,” said Faith Okorie, Nalani’s teammate. “She’s always had that motherly instinct, that motherly feeling, to her. Xéla has now emphasized certain points of that.”
Now that she has returned, it’s about leaving a legacy that her daughter can remember.
“I can’t wait for her to get a little older and me be able to come back here, and she can look hopefully in the rafters and in the books, and say ‘that was my mommy. My mommy did that.’ Just leave some kind of legacy that makes her happy and proud to be my daughter.”
