Miami Beach’s own Calista Wotten was born to play volleyball.

Her parents both played at Pepperdine and her mom has coached her for as long as she can remember.

When Wotten was very young, her mom noticed her struggling to understand sometimes when people spoke to her.

“Once I got into middle school, I would say that’s probably when it got the worst with girls,” she said. “Our little picnic benches for lunch were like super long, but they would all kind of like turn their backs away from me, so it was just like really hard to like keep up with conversations. So I just played football with the boys, and I actually have a really good arm, so watch out.”

Wotten was diagnosed as legally deaf, something that caused challenges socially but also helped her lean into the sport she was born int

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