Michigan State University Athletics
Spartans All-Access: Naya Gros
11/13/2018 10:41:00 AM | Volleyball
By Justin Frommer, Special to MSUSpartans.com
When Michigan State volleyball freshman Naya Gros was five, her favorite toy was her fluffy teddy bear that was given to her by her mom, Nicole Scott-Pierce.
"I really, really enjoyed it," she said. "That was my best friend at the time I was a kid."
The bear never left Gros' side, no matter where she went. That is, until August 2005 - when she forgot to bring it with her as her family quickly evacuated from their home.
Rain, deadly flooding and strong winds from Hurricane Katrina forced her family to leave. It forced Gros to become, what she calls, a social butterfly when she attended five-to-six different school from kindergarten to the end of high school.
Her teddy bear was gone. And so was their normalcy, as her family rebuilt - from the ground up -Â in a time of turmoil for the area.
"It was a strange but important part of my life," Gros said.Â
Time to Rebuild
As a child, Gros lived in a very tight-knit neighborhood in Gentilly, Louisiana, about 30 minutes from the Superdome, home of the New Orleans Saints.
Her one-story brick house was nothing special, as she puts it, but comfortable. It had a pool and hot tub in the backyard. Inside, there were four rooms, one for her sister and herself. The sisters made sure they were right across from each other so they could always talk. There was one for her mom too. It was a single-mother household, at least from March up until the storm in August.  Scott-Pierce, a human resource manager, and Gros's father, Andrew, a chemical engineer, divorced when Naya was five. Scott-Pierce made everything work for her two girls.
 "She did what she needed to do to provide for me and my sister," she said.
 And when Scott-Pierce couldn't be there, Gros's grandmother, Vivian Thompson, was always a call away for extra assistance.
 "I give her a lot of credit. she stepped up and helped raise me and my sister," Gros said.Â
Thompson was there to pick up Gros from school, and help with homework. The divorce was especially hard for Gros and her sibling. She rarely saw both parents at the same time.
That is, until Hurricane Katrina.
Gros never had any concern when the sisters were sent to stay with Andrew one August weekend at his home in Baton Rouge, about an hour from Gentilly. It was a normal routine for the sisters, as they rotated between their parents on alternating weekends. They did get curious a couple hours later, when their mother walked in.
"I was like 'Why is she here?', and she told us that there was a storm and she had to evacuate out of the city," Gros said. "At that time, I didn't know what was going on other than they needed to leave in order to be safe."
Scott-Pierce's home was impacted hard by Hurricane Katrina, as it sat right next to the levee blocking the river in the backyard. When the levee broke, the water flowed inside.
"We got at least 10 to 15 feet of water inside," Gros said.
Everything inside and outside of the house was ruined, from the furniture to the pool.
 "We had to rebuild," she said.
Understanding the new life
Gros, her sister and mother stayed in Baton Rouge for a year, as they recovered. For most of the process back in New Orleans, Gros wasn't around, because Scott-Pierce didn't want her to be.
"Our house got destroyed and she wanted to keep that out of our lives," she said. "She showed us pictures and I know I wouldn't have understood. She went back and did that by herself."
Scott-Pierce made frequent trips back to their Gentilly home to collect debris and to gut the house. She was able to recover a lot, but one item was never found: Gros' beloved teddy bear. Scott-Piece made sure her daughter got a new one. It was those kinds of unselfish acts that made Gros feel like nothing was wrong.
"She never showed us if she was stressed," Gros said. "She held her emotions together and I appreciate her for doing that. She's a very strong woman."
This time period also brought another big thing into Gros' life – she took up a new hobby.
Volleyball.
Talent in the making
Gros never thought playing volleyball would be a potential collegiate avenue. It was just something to do after school. "It started off as an extracurricular and as a fun activity," she said. "I really liked it so my mom found a program that offered volleyball."
It was the start of something special.
Gros was 11 when she joined the New Orleans Recreation Department and took the sport more seriously.  That led her to Louise S. McGhehee School, an all-girls private school in New Orleans. There, she was introduced to head coach Valeria Whitfield-Dunn and subsequently, Michigan State University. Whitfield-Dunn played under current MSU volleyball coach Cathy George when she was the head coach at the University of Texas-Arlington.
As Gros evolved into one of the best players in the country, her recruitment picked up, especially in her sophomore year at MSU.
 "I didn't even know MSU was an option for me until they contacted me," Gros said. "A climate change was what I wanted, so it was perfect."
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Molding her game
Gros wasn't nervous coming to MSU. She feels comfortable in any social situation, and her teammates got that vibe from the second they met.
"She came in here with so much energy and so much personality to her," said junior Samantha McLean. "I never felt like I didn't know her, she came in and it felt like she's been on the team forever. She always has a happy face and you can't even tell something like that affected her life."
In her freshman season, Gros is playing a vital role on a young team that is fighting its way through a grueling Big Ten schedule. With seven teams ranked among the nation's top 15, MSU is a part of a Conference that is arguably the best in the country. On a team that features 12 underclassmen, she has had the opportunity to develop quickly in the college game.
"I want to learn as much information, as fast as possible, because I want to be on the court and I want to produce and be a factor for my team," she said.
Her teammates notice her improvements.
"She doesn't play like a freshman," said McLean. "She stays composed and doesn't get rattled easily and that's really important for us."
 Looking back on her childhood, moving through numerous school systems, having to make new friends through the hurricane and going through the rebuilding process got her to this point of her life.
"It's made me who I am," she said. "It created me and molded me into the person I am today."
