When Asjia O’Neal was young, the first sport she loved was basketball. That’s not surprising — her father is six-time NBA All-Star Jermaine O’Neal, who spent 18 years in the league, and she was a regular at his games before she could walk. But before long, she found volleyball, a sport that was as dynamic and fast-moving as basketball. O’Neal could forge her own path in the sport.

“I fell in love with the team aspect and how just cohesive a group has to be in order to succeed,” O’Neal told Yahoo Sports. “And I thought it brought a lot of the things that I love for basketball, whether it’s fire and energy and passion and aggression and explosiveness. It brought all that, but into a sport that was not the same. It’s something that was my own.”

Volleyball eventually brought O’Neal to the University of Texas, where she won national championships in 2022 and 2023. Now, she is playing in Texas again, as a member of LOVB Austin in League One Volleyball, a new, six-team professional volleyball league. Until recently, women would need to head to leagues overseas to continue their volleyball careers beyond college. LOVB offers them a chance to play much closer to home.

“Until the end of my college career, playing here wasn’t an option,” O’Neal said. “That was not even a thought on any of our minds. So the fact that I’m able to be a part of this first group to do it is really, really special. And I think about the younger girls who are getting to see professional volleyball in America, and they can see that and know that there is a professional opportunity.”

Standing at 6-foot-3, O’Neal is a middle blocker. In her final season at Texas, she led the Big 12 in hitting percentage, and had a team-high 117 blocks.

Her passion on the court is clear in every match. She’s thrilled she gets to bring that passion to LOVB, and she also gets to do it alongside college teammates like Zoe Jarvis and Logan Eggleston, one of LOVB’s founding athletes.

“I love volleyball because you get to cheer after every single point, so something goes well,” she said. “You get to get fired up, yell with your team, scream, sit down, whatever it may be. I know that the girls that are around me on the court also have that same aggression and fire, and a lot of girls in the teams across the league do.”

Not only does her passion have a place in LOVB, but she also hopes up-and-coming athletes get to see that there isn’t one way to be a volleyball player. LOVB helps add to the exposure for women’s volleyball, as the matches will be available on ESPN2, ESPN+ or LOVB’s website (depending on the match).

“With women’s sports and how it’s exploding, it’s really important for younger girls to see that they can have whatever personality that they want to on the court,” O’Neal said. “It doesn’t mean that they’re too much, it doesn’t mean that they’re rude or mean or whatever all the negative connotations that people sometimes associate big personalities in women’s sports with. But I’m hoping that we can continue to shine the light that girls can have these personalities and succeed, and you don’t have to bend to a certain box to be a good volleyball player.”

As the game grows, she also hopes that fans will see how professional volleyball can be so much fun to watch, and they’ll have plenty of opportunities — after beginning the season last week, the 2025 LOVB season runs through April’s championship match. Through two games, LOVB Austin is 1-1 after a loss to Houston and a win over Madison. Next they take on LOVB Atlanta on Wednesday.

“I think the fans will be excited to see really high-level volleyball,” O’Neal said. “College volleyball is continuing to improve every single year, but it’s still obviously not the same level as professional and majority of American volleyball fans haven’t seen a ton of professional style volleyball, and it’s completely different. Just the skill level that there is is insane. And for me, like my first few years on the national team, playing with people who had that experience, I realized that, OK, there definitely is another huge step up.”