Athletic success in ASU volleyball player Noemie Glover’s DNA
Noemie Glover, senior opposite hitter on ASU's women’s volleyball team. Photo courtesy of Sun Devil Athletics
Story highlights
- Noemie Glover is a senior opposite hitter on ASU's women’s volleyball team. She's also arguably the best Sun Devil athlete returning for the 2026–27 season, potentially the best player coach JJ Van Niel says he has ever taught and an eventual candidate for the U.S. women’s national volleyball team.
- Last year, 6-foot-2 Glover, in her first season as a Sun Devil, led the team with 423 kills, was named the Big 12 Player of the Year, and became the fourth Sun Devil to earn AVCA (American Volleyball Coaches Association) All-American first-team honors.
- Van Niel believes Glover is one of the top three opposite hitters in the country, yet still hasn’t reached her potential.
Noemie Glover was that kid.
The kid who gets picked first for every sports team. The kid you don’t necessarily hate but your envy runs deep because they’re just so good at every sport they try. The kid whose talent seems innate.
Glover was just a young girl when her father recognized that talent in her. La’Roi Glover had a pretty good eye for athletic ability, too, having carved out a 13-year career as a defensive lineman in the NFL.
“Let’s just put it this way: She was pretty talented,” La’Roi said.
“Whatever sport she tried, she kind of naturally gravitated towards.”
Noemie is no longer a kid. But that athletic ability? Oh, it’s still there.
Now a senior opposite hitter on the Arizona State University women’s volleyball team, Glover is arguably the best Sun Devil athlete returning for the 2026–27 season, potentially the best player coach JJ Van Niel says he has ever taught and an eventual candidate for the U.S. women’s national volleyball team.
Last year, 6-foot-2 Glover, in her first season as a Sun Devil, led the team with 423 kills, was named the Big 12 Player of the Year, and became the fourth Sun Devil to earn AVCA (American Volleyball Coaches Association) All-American first-team honors.
“I’ve been pretty fortunate in my career to have some pretty special athletes, but I certainly think she has some of the biggest upside of the kids that I’ve ever coached,” Van Niel said.
Van Niel believes Glover is one of the top three opposite hitters in the country — the opposite hitter is responsible for right-side attacks and blocking the opponent’s strongest outside hitter — yet still hasn’t reached her potential.
“She absolutely has all the tools where she can become a national team player someday,” Van Niel said. “She has more work to do. She knows it. But she’s really physical, she has a great arm and is a really good blocker. And she’s only getting better.”
Choosing the Sun Devils
How Glover got to ASU is a story unto itself.
She played her first two seasons for the University of Oregon, but was less than enthused about Oregon’s move from the Pac-12 Conference to the Big Ten Conference.
“I didn’t like how it was an east-to-west type of vibe,” Glover said of the Big Ten, which, geographically, includes universities from California to New Jersey.
She entered the transfer portal. Initially, ASU wasn’t a consideration. She had been to Las Vegas several times and thought the Valley had a similar “you don’t really go outside” feel.
But then she recalled a match from her freshman year, when Oregon came to Tempe. The Sun Devils, Glover said, “made us work,” and she was impressed by the environment and the crowd. That same season, ASU went up to Oregon and swept the No. 5-ranked Ducks in three games.
“That definitely kind of put me on their radar,” Glover said.
After entering the transfer portal, Glover got a phone call from Van Niel, inviting her and her family to visit the campus. Glover loved the fact that Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport was just 10 minutes away, it was only a five-and-a-half-hour drive to her family’s home in Southern California, and Van Neil had the Sun Devils on the rise, having won the Big 12 title in 2024.
“The convenience and the high-level ball — it’s set up for athletic success,” Glover said. “Especially at this young, young age when you’re trying to navigate so many things.”
That Glover became an instant sensation at ASU — she had a team-high 17 kills in the season opener against Northern Iowa and later had a school-record 31 kills against Colorado — surprised no one. Athletic success, after all, is in her DNA.
La’Roi Glover wasn’t just an everyday NFL defensive lineman. He made six consecutive Pro Bowls and was a four-time All-Pro selection. Glover’s mom, Spring, ran track and played tennis. Her brother, La’Roi Jr., is 6-foot-9, and her sister, Sophia, is 6-foot-3.
“Naturally, I always had a pretty athletic build,” Glover said. “I think that just instantly kind of clicked into a love for sports.”
Glover played volleyball, ran track and played basketball. When she wasn’t in school, La’Roi would take her to the Rams’ practice facility, where Glover would run around on the turf, meet her father’s teammates and fall even more in love with sports.
At home, there were always good-natured workouts. La’Roi would place his kids on his back as he did pushups. The kids competed in sports and even video games, Glover’s aversion to losing already so deep that she would throw the video game controller across the room if a game didn’t go her way.
“It was just a lifestyle in general of having that mentality of wanting to be your best self and wanting to perform in all ways that you can,” Glover said.
Early on, Glover thought basketball would be her career path. She loved playing and watching the game, particularly her favorites: LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant.
There was just one problem.
“I couldn’t shoot,” Glover said. “I still can’t shoot. I have no range.”
Fortunately, a logistics problem led her away from basketball and toward volleyball. One day, Sophia told her that having three kids in three different sports — La’Roi Jr. was playing football, and Sophia was playing volleyball — was becoming impossible to manage, particularly with La’Roi’s time being monopolized by his playing career.
Glover agreed to give up basketball and track and try club volleyball.
“And in my first tournament, the girls I met on my team, we just fell in love with one another,” Glover said. “It was just kind of an unmatched feeling of like, ‘OK, this is what I’m meant to do.’”
As Glover heads into her senior season, she is thinking about the future, about playing on the U.S. National team and perhaps, one day, in the Olympics.
That kid has big dreams.
“I have the mindset of wanting to represent volleyball on the highest stage possible,” she said. “I want to help grow the sport. I want to be someone who’s a good light for shining through this next generation of volleyball.
“I think that we’ve reached so many new ceilings in volleyball, with viewership, the physicality, the athleticism and everyone’s passion for the sport. So, I just love to be a part of it. Playing professionally? Playing for the USA? Yeah, hopefully that’s next.”
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