Embracing You
Taylor Dowdy
Growing up on the Navajo reservation, volleyball transfer Melia Barlow had a tight-knit community in Tuba City, Arizona where sports brought everyone together.
“Everybody knew everybody,” Barlow said. “The community was really close. It shaped me into the person I am growing up in a small town.”
Barlow played volleyball a majority of her life, starting at 5-years-old, but didn’t start playing competitively until age 8. Being coached by her dad her entire life and having an older brother playing three sports, Barlow knew she would follow in their footsteps.
“When I was younger, I really looked up to my older brother,” Barlow said. “He worked really hard at each sport and then started to really focus on baseball. Also, just doing all of the other things outside of it, like working out and getting extra reps.”
After watching her dad coach athletes that went off to play at the collegiate level and looking up to three-time NCAA champion libero Morgan Hentz, Barlow was hopeful that she would get that opportunity one day to play at the higher level.
In her one year at Tuba City High School, Barlow accrued 217 kills, 371 digs, 40 aces, 33 assists, and 45 blocks.
“We never really had the money to go to big tournaments where all of the coaches went,” Barlow said. “I never really knew what that was like on the reservation…until I transferred to Hamilton.”
Going from a freshman class of one hundred in Tuba City, to then moving to Hamilton High School in Chandler, Arizona, with a graduating senior class of 1,000, Barlow experienced a vast change.
Her mom had gotten a job opportunity in Chandler and her family was looking for something new.
“We didn’t know I was going to end up at Hamilton High School which had a really good volleyball history in Arizona,” Barlow said. “And then we ended up winning two state championships and one runner-up.”
During her three years at Hamilton being a two-year starter and team captain, she compiled 2,531 career assists, 618 digs, 85 skills, 111 aces, and 89 blocks. In 2021 and 2022, Barlow led the state in assists and earned 3A North First Team All-Region honors both years. She was also named a volleyball all-star by Navajo Times and was the 2021 Navajo Times Player of the Year.
“It kind of just fell into place for the rest of us,” Barlow said. “If I went to Chandler (instead of Hamilton), where would I be right now?”
After three successful seasons, Barlow was unsure what the recruiting process would look like for her. She felt behind compared to her club teammates, but still had the opportunity as a walk-on at Northern Arizona.
As a redshirt freshman at NAU, Barlow played in 24 matches tallying 240 assists and 113 digs.
“I think my journey at NAU was needed,” Barlow said. “It was definitely a hard process coming to a conclusion that I was gonna leave. So, I really had to bet on myself at that moment.”
Barlow finished two and a half years at NAU but was looking for something more, and that search led her to Boise State.
“I really connected with the coaches,” Barlow said. “They really wanted to get to know me as a person, and ever since I’ve been here. I’ve had a lot of really good, comfortable conversations. It’s just very welcoming in that type of environment that I feel like I really needed in the moment.”
The Boise State volleyball coaching staff welcomed Barlow to the team in the spring.
“We were looking for an experienced libero,” head coach Shawn Garus said. “Melia was the starting libero on the team that won the Big Sky Conference, so she checked a lot of boxes there. And then the more we got to know her, the more the fit grew, and she was the right one for us.”
During her time at NAU, Barlow was invited to the inaugural Native Student-Athlete Summit in Lawrence, Kansas by Indigenous Advancement Council member, Alisse Ali-Joseph, but couldn’t attend because of volleyball travel. After she transferred to Boise State, the opportunity came about once more this summer and thought it was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up.
Once she signed up and got accepted, Barlow was headed to Lawrence for the second-annual Native Student-Athlete Summit.
Throughout the weekend, native student-athletes, administrators, and community members heard from a variety of insightful speakers that addressed issues Indigenous athletes face but also the impact they’ve made. Keynote speaker Billy Mills, Olympic gold medalist and Ogala Lakota legend, presented in front of the forty student-athletes that attended the summit.
“It was really inspiring,” Barlow said. “He [Billy Mills] really pointed out the importance of just embracing yourself and embracing your culture. It just felt like a really comfortable place knowing that he has also gone through the same like these other student-athletes.”
Mills reinforced the importance of being ‘unapologetically native in nonnative spaces.’
“After going to the summit, it was really important to embrace my culture because there’s other athletes on the reservation from my hometown that look up to me,” Barlow said.
The Navajo Nation is the largest Native American reservation in the United States, overlapping the borders of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Throughout the summit, Barlow had the opportunity to meet a variety of student-athletes from much smaller tribes all over the country. Regardless of tribe size, they all share similar upbringings, backgrounds and experiences as Native student-athletes.
“There’s some characteristics that happen to already be given to us, like we’re quiet, shy, not really loud people, and don’t open up as much,” Barlow said. “So I’m sharing my story and showing that I am very open now after I went to the summit. And you can be yourself in these spaces, even if you don’t feel like it.”
After attending the summit and hearing from such passionate leaders in the Native community, Barlow hopes to bring back insight to her teammates at Boise State.
“If I open up to them a little bit more about my background and the way I grew up, I feel like it would bring me closer to them and make me feel more comfortable than I’ve ever felt in any team that I’ve played for,” Barlow said.
Barlow enrolled at Boise State in January, giving her some time to settle in with her teammates and the coaching staff before the 2026 season begins. Being one of the three upperclassmen on this year’s roster, Barlow is set to be a learner and leader on the court.
“I love her willingness to learn,” Garus said. “She’s embraced some changes in trying to get a little bit better at the things we do and passing in the seams to help her teammates out more. She’s finding her voice on the court and realizing that she has a lot of good information for the young players that are around her.”
Barlow’s journey is just getting started at Boise State and she’s ready to begin this next chapter embracing who she truly is.
Melia Barlow
I’m really excited to be myself and be the type of player my teammates can lead on. And to have my presence make other players feel more comfortable in their own game.