Leah Best talks volleyball, playing in college and professionally overseas, and her life after volley and coming back to it!
Watch the Interview Here:
Listen to the Interview Here:
Read the Interview Here:
Samantha: Today, super exciting news, I’m here with Leah Best who is absolutely fantastic. She is a former professional athlete, she has lived in five different countries, and now she is back in the United States as a real working woman and I’m very excited I get to talk to her. Hi, Leah.
Leah: Hi.
Samantha: How are you today?
Leah: I’m well, thank you, I’m a little bit bored staying inside, but that’s all good.
Samantha: Yes, that’s always fun, isn’t it?
Leah: Yes.
Samantha: How is your quarantine going for you?
Leah: It’s okay. I’m in between fitness superstar and master chef, so I would have a great quarantine body but I’m eating a lot at the same time.
Samantha: Master chef, what are you cooking then?
Leah: It’s a lot of French toast, to be honest, lot of French toast, a lot of pancakes, just did the recipes with what we can find at the store, whatever they have left it there and trying to be creative with that.
Samantha: Well, are you able to get all of the ingredients that you’ll need for this?
Leah: No.
Samantha: Because I’ve been having a hard time here in San Diego.
Leah: Yes. It’s been quite hard, it was a week search for some eggs. The last time I couldn’t find any flour or sugar. So, it just depends what’s in, what’s out, I’m sure everyone’s having the same problem, so yes, just trying to be creative really with whatever we can get.
Samantha: I mean, definitely, I find that being creative helps with boredom too.
Leah: Yes, true.
Samantha: All right. Let’s quickly do a fast round here to start things off. Chapstick or lip gloss?
Leah: Chapstick.
Samantha: Cake or cookies.
Leah: Cookies.
Samantha: Bubblegum or mint?
Leah: Mint.
Samantha: Book or NOOK?
Leah: Book?
Samantha: Do you like to read a tactile book or do you like to read stuff online?
Leah: Oh, a book.
Samantha: Yes. Beach or mountains?
Leah: Beach.
Samantha: Inside or outside. Trick question, we all have to be inside right now.
Leah: True, that’s true, but I would prefer to be quarantined on the beach and the next time we have a pin ballet let’s figure that out, thank you.
Samantha: I might have a problem with what Florida was having, everyone wanted to be quarantined at the beach.
Leah: Yes, yes.
Samantha: All right. Let’s get into the small talk of things. Where are you living right now?
Leah: I’m in Texas, mostly because I work in Texas. And it’s great. Yes. I am in Texas, I live in an apartment complex which is nice, that’s about it, since quarantine, not allowed to do, I’m I really allowed to do much else.
Samantha: What is the best things? Because when I come visit you, what is the best thing about where you live?
Leah: Well though, it’s really nice, it’s always warm. It’s pretty much, we’re just north of the border here so if you can imagine American Mexico which is great actually, I love it, such authentic Mexican food, there’s also really good sushi, the beach is about 45 minutes away and there’s like a lot of actually a lot of nature parts and just things to do which is nice.
Samantha: I think my favorite part of that was there’s a lot of Mexican food and lots of sushi.
Leah: Yes, there is, there’s really good sushi down here, which was shocking because I moved from L.A. and I was really pretty snobby on, “Oh, my favorite food is sushi but it’s definitely not as good as the ones in downtown L.A.” But it’s pretty good, I was pleasantly surprised.
Samantha: What is your favorite restaurant there then? What would you suggest.
Leah: Oh, it’s a hard, hard tie between Comorris which is a sushi inspired restaurant and Taco Palenque which is a fast food Mexican restaurant which has the best guacamole I’ve tasted in my entire life, it’s amazing and it’s drive through. It’s like a fast food restaurant but they don’t just give you, they’re not stingy about the guacamole, it’s a lot on there, which I really value, that quality.
Samantha: Yes. I mean, I’ve judged places based on the guac.
Leah: Exactly.
Samantha: Guac and the chips and the salsa.
Leah: Yes, it’s very important to me also.
Samantha: All right. Let’s get into the bigger questions I guess of, who are you? Who are you and then how did you get to where you are?
Leah: Well, I’m Leah. I ’cause I went to Cal State Fullerton for my undergrad in communications and after I graduated, I played volleyball there. After I graduated, I went overseas and played professional volleyball for four years after playing professionally in Europe I went back and I got my masters in mass communication. And then after that I came back to L.A. and I was actually working in a marketing firm for about a year and just really didn’t enjoy it, at all. So, that I decided to really go back to what I was passionate about and that’s volleyball but this time I went on the coaching side of things.
Samantha: Can you talk about playing a professional sport because I feel like that’s such a unique experience that you’ve had.
Leah: Yes.
Samantha: It’s just a wonderful, unique thing.
Leah: Yes. It was a lot of fun, it was so great to be able to travel and experience that and make friend from all over the world and at the same time it’s really fun. It’s also really hard, it’s really hard to be away from your family and your friends at home and missing Easter or birthday parties or even funerals a lot of people don’t understand that aspect of it. But it prepared me a lot for quarantine because it’s also a little bit lonely, not always lonely but a little bit because you’re over there as a professional. So, you train and recover and they’re very serious about their recovery, so recovery is not like, as I found out the hard way, it’s not like taking a shopping day in Paris, it’s very, very serious about it. You’re staying at home and stretching and rolling out, so you’re at home recovering or you’re training.
Samantha: Do you have any crazy stories?
Leah: There’s not that I want to share on the internet.
Samantha: Good answer, good answer, I like that. What made you decide to move overseas because as you said, it is hard and it is a bit isolating to pick up and move to a country where you don’t necessarily speak the language.
Leah: Yes. Well, one it’s always exciting and if you get the opportunity, I think to travel especially if you don’t necessarily have to pay for it, it’s amazing. No, if you get the opportunity to really be immersed in a totally different culture that has different values and learn about that culture, it’s an amazing experience that you could never get otherwise and there’s nothing else you could do for something like that, it’s just totally life-changing.
Samantha: I was just going to say, I talked to one of my friends recently and they were talking about their time abroad, but they were doing a study abroad and it was very different for them because even though they were living overseas they were still living with all of the other university students who came with them.
Leah: Right, playing is like, as a professional and as an American, there’s a lot of leagues that really limit the use of foreigners. So, you may be the only American, and that’s why you want is a few English speakers on the team so you’re really forced to kind of go out and fend for yourself which is great actually it’s very scary and hard, there’s a lot of charades involved but you can’t beat it. Yes.
Samantha: I always find myself becoming a caricature of myself to get ideas across, like emotion is times 10.
Leah: Yes, but everyone I met was super helpful and really tried to help me understand the culture and the language and all the different languages and cultures which was fun.
Samantha: Yes, definitely. When did you decide that it was your time to end, to retire and to stop because like you said, you came back to volleyball through coaching, volleyball is such an integral part of who you are and how you grew up and everything.
Leah: Right definitely. So, I was actually born in England and then I moved to America when I was about 13 and I started playing volleyball when I was 15 really. And since that first day, it just never stopped my whole life was filled with volleyball and everything else came second to volleyball, didn’t matter what it was. And that was fun because I was in loved with volleyball and it was the only passion I was just really embraced by it, but as I got older it started to appear to me that that’s not the only thing in my life anymore, it’s not like my only passion, it’s not the only goal that I wanted to pursue.
And so, I found myself in practice like, “Oh, I really wish I could be at my friend’s baby shower. Oh, I really wish I could’ve been at my grandma’s funeral.” Which are things that you have to sacrifice and that feeling kept happening more and more and so eventually I was like, “I’m not wanting to be in practice.” And so, if you don’t want to practice then you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing because that’s your job. So, if you don’t want to be in that work and you’re not happy there then it’s time to pursue something else. I loved my career, I’m so happy I got to do it and I’m so happy that I have the opportunity to make the decision to walk away. Because a lot of people don’t get the opportunity to make that choice, they get injured or something happens and their career ends but I’m really fortunate that I felt like I completed my career and ended it on a really, really good note.
Samantha: That’s great. I’m so happy for you. So, speaking of ending your career and coming back, what has been the most challenging thing for you to enter the real workforce or the real world. What was the biggest obstacle you faced?
Leah: The biggest obstacle I think, for me, personally, even though I’m a full adult I felt a lot of the times, as an athlete, you really are catered to, everyone is really invested in your wellbeing or what you need to do to be successful. I felt like in the real world, people they don’t care about you that much, you’re here to do a job and get it done and that’s fine, but as far as you need to be here on time, this is what you need to bring, that doesn’t happen, it’s more of like, “You signed up for this, go.” And that’s sort of all the instruction that you get.
Samantha: Well, what’s been the best thing about coming over and transitioning into the real workforce?
Leah: A lot of times I think, “I could go back, I could play a couple more years.” No, my job, I love my job right now, I’m the assistant coach for the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and I adore my job and I love who I work with, the girls, on the team and my boss is great, and the whole school is really supportive, the greatest thing about it is I think I have a little bit more autonomy on my life which means I can decide what I want to do a little bit more which is really nice. I can be like, I’ll do this and then because I’ve done that I may get this leeway a little bit. But as an athlete you don’t get that as much, it’s like, “You have to be here at practice and then you have to be at the games.”
Samantha: Yes.
Leah: In real life you can sort of adjust your own schedule a little bit more.
Samantha: Figure out vacation days around what you want to do instead of what the coach needs of you.
Leah: Right, exactly.
Samantha: Yes. Very interesting. Just as a side note, as I’m an athlete I did not preface that, I’m very sorry everyone, we met playing volley ball together over season England. But I know that it’s always really fun for me during the off-days because I get to wear normal people clothing but I don’t really have a lot. So, how is it for you coming back into the world of having only sweatpants and the sweatshirts and having to get a completely new wardrobe?
Leah: Well, no, I’m an athletic coach, so I didn’t, I still generally wear leggings and T-shirts to work, to office every day, except for game days when I do like I’ll dress nice and I’ll have work pose for official meetings and recruiting chips and stuff like that. But no, generally I wear leggings and T-shirts and that’s the most fantastic part about being a coach, hands down.
Samantha: I was thinking more, though, a short month of marketing in Los Angeles, I mean, I’m sure that’s like a fashion-forward city too.
Leah: It started because I’m a bit of a diva so it started out as a lot of fun. Dressing up and I’m going like office clothes, like you see in the movies, that I really wanted to be Mad Men, only up, just the fashion, in terms of fashion and they lasted for about two weeks. And then it turns out as I was just getting busier and busier and working more ridiculous hours that I just could not maintain it and I didn’t care to. So, yes.
Samantha: Went back to the sweatpants?
Leah: Real quick, real quick.
Samantha: I mean, yoga pants are considered fashionable in L.A. so.
Leah: That’s true.
Samantha: Yoga pants and a nice top, you’re good to go.
Leah: Yes. But it was nice to get back in clothes that I was more confident in.
Samantha: That’s good. How is everything going with being an athletics coach during quarantine and during this crazy time?
Leah: It’s really hard. I’m a really team-oriented person, obviously, so I really miss the teams that I work with and, I mean, while I’m still able to go into the office, it’s not quite the same without the team there and holding practices which also, really, I’m really worried about the girls or the young women, that at home. I don’t know if they have good internet connection to finish their school work, are they working out? I don’t know. They can say “yes” but it’s really going to be a lot of them and how accountable they are while they’re away and while I believe that they can do it they’re all great people, it’s a little bit like I’m letting go with my children.
Samantha: Got to let your babies fly a little bit.
Leah: Yes, it’s really hard. I really miss just being in practice and that whole team dynamic.
Samantha: Yes, I mean, and again, it’s like they’re having a stop in their career in a sense so do you know now they probably have a lot autonomy over their time.
Leah: And I know when I first stopped playing it was really fun and then it really became not fun very quickly at Berkley I can do whatever I want, I don’t have to work out, I can eat whatever I want, I can go wherever I want. And that can be fine sometimes but it can get you in trouble real fast if you don’t buckle down and take care of business.
Samantha: Yes. So, for all the girls out there doing well.
Leah: Yes, please.
Samantha: Do you have them on any kind of programs that they can do at their houses or anything?
Leah: Yes. Their weight coach, the UTRGV weight coach give all the athletes a very specified strength and conditioning program for them while they were away, although around the world we don’t really know how long the quarantine it’s going to last. And we also, we don’t know what equipment, they have available, so while the program that he gave to them is very self-sufficient. And I hope for the best really.
Samantha: So, on a good note on quarantine, I saw your Instagram and you have LT jumping over progressively larger and larger piles of toilet paper onto your beautiful puppy dog.
Leah: Yes.
Samantha: Are there going to be more Olympic competitions for this dog?
Leah: LT is my third baby number one, she’s a little Staffordshire Terrier a Pitbull mix and she did win the toilet roll jumping competition. I got a different puppy who’s a lot bigger but way dumber, so we’re trying to find ways to incorporate the other dogs, so she doesn’t feel left out because LT just, she can’t win everything. It’s really hard, to try to keep them even, they get jealous of each other.
Samantha: All right. So, I kind of ending things on happy notes. Where is your favorite place that you’ve traveled /or if it’s different where is your favorite place that you’ve lived?
Leah: My favorite place that I lived would have to be Paris. I wasn’t in the center of Paris but I was about 45 minutes outside the city, just far enough to take the train and jump there. I absolutely love France, it was amazing, it was my favorite place by far to lived. My favorite place to have traveled.
Samantha: Where have you all traveled?
Leah: That’s really hard, I’ve traveled a lot because not only with my work playing volleyball and then being a volleyball coach but also my dad is a rugby coach, it was a rugby coach. So, we used to travel a lot with him. And I just remember some really amazing times in South Africa, we were there for a month and it’s just indescribable, how beautiful it is, I really enjoyed that.
Samantha: Oh, that’s fun. Here’s a really big question. What do you think it means to be a woman today?
Leah: I was prepared for this question and I would like to, if you give me a moment, I would like to quote one of my favorite authors Lizzo, “if you hear like a girl, cry like a girl. If you feel like a girl then you’re real like a girl, do your thing, run the whole world.” So, I’m pretty sure she summed it up there.
Samantha: Perfect, I love it, 10/10.
Leah: Yes, thank you.
Samantha: Thank you very much.
Leah: I feel like today it’s really hard to pin it down specifically to what being a woman is, so for me, I’m very open. If you feel like a woman, that’s it, then you’re woman, if you feel like one, why not?
Samantha: Good, I like it, we’re all inclusive.
Leah: Yes.
Samantha: And then, if someone walked up to you, if a woman walked up to you and asked you for advice and you only had a few minutes to talk to them what would you tell them, what would be Leah’s nuggets of gold in advice.
Leah: Leah’s nuggets of gold, they’re actually, probably, Leah’s grandma’s nuggets of gold. What she told me growing up was always, chin up, chest out and stop saying “sorry”.
Samantha: That’s so good.
Leah: Which mainly mean, be confident in yourself in what you have to say. And I think confidence is really key, because when your confident in who you are everything else becomes easier, better, more reliable, even if you’re wrong in something it becomes easier to recognize it and make the correction if you’re not confident in who you are as a person then you see a lot of times people get very defensive, argumentative but they’re just confidence really.
Samantha: I love that so much, learned the best, love it.
Leah: Yes, she was the best, yes.
Samantha: Do you have any final words that you want to leave with all of the lovely women watching this and women, men, whoever?
Leah: I don’t think so. And say Texas is a great place to visit, if you guys want to come down, come to– can I publicize? Can I shamelessly self-promote here?
Samantha: Yes. Plug yourself go for it.
Leah: UTRGV Volleyball. That’s about it, UTRGV Volleyball and Samantha plays for great professional team called Düdingen Volleyball out of Switzerland so you can follow them up also.
Samantha: Thank you. Not currently, currently I’m back home in San Diego.
Leah: Yes. Because everyone’s in quarantine.
Samantha: Because everyone is in quarantine.
Leah: They say. Wash your hands.
Samantha: Did I say, wash your hands, and if you’re feeling anxious if you have PMS symptoms and you’re feeling anxiety or gloomy mood or stress levels this is, Jubilance (oaa supplement) is shown to help, I’m taking it every day. It’s just these times are crazy if you need a little extra help it’s fine, it’s fine to need that little extra help.
Leah: Yes, yes. Exercise, call your friends.
Samantha: Exercise gives you endorphins.
Leah: Eat something, yes, that’s good.
Samantha: Endorphins make you happy.
Leah: Yes, take it always.
Samantha: To misquote Elle Woods.
Leah: Yes, the best.
Samantha: All right. That’s it for this week everyone, thank you so much for being on Leah.
Leah: Thank you.
Samantha: Sorry, there was like craziness in the beginning, we were trying to figure this out forever.
Leah: Yes, it’s okay.
Samantha: All right. Stay safe everyone.
Leah: Stay safe and wash your hands.
Samantha: Wash your hands, stay inside.
