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University of North Carolina Athletics
Black History Month Honoree: Mailaka Underwood
February 14, 2017 | Volleyball
By Turner Walston, GoHeels.com
The boys in her San Diego neighborhood played baseball, so young Malaika Underwood joined right in. She picked up t-ball at an early age, but although many girls her age began to move toward softball, Underwood stuck with baseball. "I just loved the game," she said. "For me, softball seemed like such a different game. Smaller field, bigger ball, so I just kept playing baseball."
When the time came to choose a high school, Malaika wrote area baseball coaches, asking if they would be open to allowing her to try out. "I got a mixed bag of responses," she said. "Some coaches said, 'Hey, we have a softball team.' Some coaches said, 'Sure, if you're good enough, we don't have a problem with it.'"
Bob Allen at La Jolla High School was in the latter group. "He seemed genuine about his openness," Underwood said. "I went there and played volleyball and basketball, and once that was over, tried out and made the JV team. I played JV for two years and varsity for two years after that."
During one spring tournament game against Patrick Henry High, Underwood led off the game against pitcher Mark Todd - who happened to be her boyfriend at the time. "Coach comes up to me and says, 'I'm going to lead you off, but I don't want you to come out into the on-deck circle until right before play starts,'" Underwood recalled. She took some warm-up swings in the dugout and then stepped to the plate just as the umpire yelled 'batter up.' "The look on Mark's face was, 'Are you serious?'" she said. Todd threw outside and walked Underwood on four pitches. "He said I was crowding the plate, but I wasn't," she said with a laugh.
Underwood was (and continues to be) a superb athlete. San Diego's Female Prep Athlete of the Year in 1999, she earned a full scholarship to play volleyball at Carolina. On the volleyball court, she played beyond her size of 5'9. Underwood's proficiency in multiple sports made her a versatile volleyball player, adaptable to multiple positions to suit the team needs. "Typically when you have kids that are multi-sport athletes, they tend to be able to do a lot of different things," said Eve Rackham, a college teammate of Underwood's who is now assistant head coach at Carolina under Joe Sagula. "She could pass. She could set. She could hit and she could block and serve. She could do it all. It was clear that she had played other sports."
Underwood was not tall enough to be a middle hitter, but she helped out as a blocker and a passer. When Rackham injured her ankle early in their junior season, Underwood trained as a backup setter. The position of libero was not yet in the college game at the time, but Underwood was that kind of versatile asset. "The more she was on the court, the more she could impact the people around her," Sagula said. "She was able to be a great leader, and I think that's an important skill, and something I came to appreciate."
That leadership manifested itself in the 2001 ACC Volleyball Tournament, when the Tar Heels found themselves behind Clemson in their opening match. "We were losing that match two sets to one, and she turned to the entire team and said, 'We're going to get this done. We're going to do this,'" Sagula said. They did get it done, winning in five sets, then defeating Maryland and Florida State on the following days to capture the tournament title. Underwood was named Most Valuable Player of the tournament.
"She was a tremendous competitor and player," Rackham said, "and there's not a lot of kids like that anymore."
But Underwood wasn't done competing when her college volleyball career ended. Indeed, she went back to her first love. In 2006 she was named to the USA Baseball Women's National Team and has since represented her country at six World Cups. Women's baseball made its Pan American Games debut in 2015, and Underwood led the United States to the gold medal, hitting .600 over five tournament games.
"Underwood is not of this planet," Team USA manager Jonathan Pollard told USABaseball.com following the tournament. "She is a machine. She is our team leader, she is so experienced and she plays the game the right way. She respects her teammates, she respects the coaching staff. To me, regardless of my bias because she is on my team, there is no greater face for women's baseball walking this earth."
Today, Underwood works as a vice president of The Brandr Group, a branding and licensing agency based in Atlanta while keeping her eyes on the diamond. "I would like to continue to play through the 2018 World Cup," she said. "It's a ways off, but if I could have my way, I'll be playing in 2018."
Her college volleyball coach has seen Underwood in action on the baseball diamond, and he recognizes the winning combination that has worked in multiple sports. "When she's on the court, or the field, everyone around her is better, and that's an intangible thing that you find out only by being around these players," Sagula said. "And that's what I love about Malaika."
