Florida State University Athletics
No Regrets, Just Garnet and Gold
4/10/2025 2:49:00 PM | Women's Beach Volleyball
SandyNoles: An FSU Beach Volleyball Podcast
TALLAHASSEE – Brooke Niles didn't have a shot at landing a commitment from Makenna Wolfe. She knew it.
Here was one of the top-rated juniors who had yet to make a commitment, hailing from Arroyo Grande, California, a small town in northern California that sits at the intersection of breathtaking bucolic beauty and one of the country's finest beaches, where the waves are good, and the sun takes no days off.
Sure, Tallahassee has its charm, but c'mon: How was she supposed to compete with that?
She didn't.
What Niles and the Florida State beach volleyball team had instead was a group of young women on its team whose pull was stronger even than the Sierras Wolfe so loved to hike and the waves she still loves to surf.
"I never thought I'd leave California," Wolfe said. "I thought I'd stay local."
"But," she continues, and this is a most critical but, "I came here with you of course."
The you in the sense is in reference to the senior sitting next to her in the Florida State team room, Madi Trusty. They didn't plan to take their official visits together, in the fall of 2021, but a small dose of serendipity led to the "fun little surprise," as Wolfe calls it. "I loved it."
More appealing than the natural beauty surrounding the schools she was considering up and down the coast of California was the team itself, the team Niles had assembled for the purpose of winning volleyball matches and now the one who would also clinch the commitments of two of its top recruits.
"I felt in with the group already," Wolfe said. "They brought us in with welcome arms. It did help that Madi was also with me."
Trusty wasted no time in her commitment, declaring that she would be a Florida State Seminole the next morning at a bagel place that, sadly for her nostalgia's sake, is no longer in business.
"It was something about coming here that everybody made you feel included," Trusty said. "You could tell the girls really cared about volleyball and each other and filling up your cup outside of the sport."
With Trusty on board, Wolfe soon followed, adding her commitment a week later to a class that also included a pair of good friends in Madison Binkley and Anna Long.
"There couldn't be a better case scenario for my freshman class," Trusty said. "We didn't make a single friend in our dorm. We had each other. Everything in our lives worked out."
Indeed, it did. This weekend, Wolfe will play the final regular season event of her Florida State career, at the very location Niles never thought she had a chance of pulling her away from: Cal Poly. It speaks to how much Wolfe values her experience in Tallahassee that when she returns home to northern California, she feels no pangs of regret, no longing for the mountains or trails or waves, only a deep appreciation both for what she has – a garnet and gold jersey, a team she adores – and what she can return to — friends and family, waves and trails.
"They're both home," Wolfe said of Tallahassee and northern California. "When I go home to California, I get the beach, but when I go home to Florida, I get my people. Having a good group of girls helped, volleyball keeping me busy was a big thing. It was a big shift not having my surfing and hiking side with me, but I found other interests. I met my future bridesmaids, and I knew it. I knew this place was home."
For more information on the Florida State beach volleyball program, check Seminoles.com and follow us on social media at fsubeachvolleyball (IG) and @FSU_BeachVB (X).
