Ogonna Nnamani

Ogonna Nneka Nnamani (born July 29, 1983) is a physician, retired American indoor volleyball player, and former member of the United States National and Olympic teams.

During her time at University High School she won back to back state championships in 1999 and 2000.

She has a younger sister, Nji, who played volleyball alongside her at Stanford University and married professional track athlete Russell Wolf Brown.

Nnamani also has two younger brothers, Nnaemeka and Ikechi Nnamani.

Nnaemeka ran track and field at Illinois State University, competing in the long and triple jump.

She led Stanford University to three NCAA championship matches, winning the national title in 2001 and 2004.

She was awarded the Honda-Broderick Cup in 2004 as the nation's top female athlete across all NCAA sports and is regarded as one of the best players in Stanford University's history with a career record of 2,450 kills, for which she entered the Stanford Hall of Fame in 2015.

Nnamani has played at two Olympic games, in 2004 and 2008.

In 2004, she became the second woman in history to make the U.S. national team for an Olympic Games while still in college, and as part of the second U.S. team in history to reach the Olympic finals, earned the 2008 Olympic silver medal for indoor volleyball.

As a senior, Nnamani won an NCAA championship, was named the AVCA National co-Player of the Year, the Honda-Broderick Cup winner, Academic All-American of the Year, and an NCAA Top Eight Award as part of the Class of 2005.

Nnamani has led her professional teams to national league titles in 2007 (Swiss Volleyball League) and 2010 (Czech Extraliga), and a runner-up finish in 2006 (Puerto Rico LVSF).

Nnamani was born in Bloomington, Illinois, and attended University High School in Normal, Illinois, where she also played basketball.

Ikechi was the 2009 Illinois High School Association champion in the high jump and former state record holder.

He competed at Rice University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Her parents speak the Igbo language.

Nnamani was considered the top high school recruit for her class, as she was recruited by major universities in 49 of the 50 U.S. States and won the Gatorade National Player of the Year award as a senior in high school.

She is the oldest child of Uzo and Chika Nnamani.

Her parents emigrated to the United States from Nigeria in pursuit of better educational opportunities.

They are alumni of Illinois State University.

Her father, Chika Nnamani, is an adjunct professor in Politics and Government and also the former Assistant Vice President and Director of Housing at Illinois State University and her mother, Uzo, is an artist and a teacher.

Her last name translates to one who knows the land in the Igbo language.

In 2009 Nnamani signed a contract to play with VK Prostějov for her 2010 professional season.

In the same year, she signed a contract extension with Nike.

Nnamani led Stanford to an unexpected NCAA championship as Stanford was not favored to win as the NCAA tournament's overall 11th seed, but Nnamani set an NCAA tournament record for kills en route to a win over number 4 seed Minnesota in the final at Long Beach Arena in Long Beach, California.

On August 25, 2012 she married former Stanford football player, Mike Silva.

Silva graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Economics.

Silva also completed a master's degree in Engineering at Stanford and a master's in business administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

He is currently a venture capitalist.

Nnamani received her Doctorate in Medicine from University of California San Francisco School of Medicine in 2020 where she was named a Regent Scholar and graduated with Alpha Omega Alpha honors.

Mike and Ogonna have a daughter, Anya, and resided in San Francisco, California for 10 years.

They moved to Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, and she is currently a resident in plastic and reconstructive surgery at Harvard Medical School.

She is known to be a talented orator and is a motivational speaker for organizations such as Nike, Gatorade, the Women’s Sports Foundation, Honda, and the National Football Foundation.

She was a guest lecturer with Alex Rodriguez and Jeffrey K. Lee for several courses taught by Allison Kluger at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

As a freshman at Stanford, she won an NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship, and for her efforts was named on the NCAA Final Four all-tournament team as she had 19 kills against previously undefeated Long Beach State in the NCAA championship match.

She was named the Pac-10, Volleyball Magazine, and AVCA Pacific Region Freshman of the Year.

As a sophomore, she was named an AVCA second team all-American en route to helping Stanford to an NCAA runner-up finish, losing to Pac-10 rival USC in the final.

She averaged 4.10 kills, 1.14 digs, 0.67 blocks and 4.59 points per game.

Nnamani was named a First Team All-American as well as a Honda Sports Award nominee for volleyball.

She set a Stanford single-season kills record with 627.

She had 27 kills while hitting .415 in NCAA Second Round win over Pacific She was named the tournament MVP at University Park Holiday Inn Classic.