Pittsburgh Volleyball Star Ryla Jones Connects Native American Heritage to Competitive Confidence
For Pittsburgh volleyball standout Ryla Jones, strength comes from a source far deeper than the net. The inaugural Native Student Athlete Summit at the NCAA national office illuminated her Cree and First Nations roots, providing a path back to her Indigenous identity and fueling her performance with confidence and community. “It just lit a path for me,” she said of the experience.
Building a Community Circle
Jones arrived at the summit curious about her mother’s roots in Canada and left with a profound sense of community. The event, held in June, transformed a general familial pull into a specific purpose, connecting her with a network of peers who understood her background. “It created a community for me and a circle that I could just run back to when I want to just dive deeper into my Native side and some traditions that I want to get more into,” Jones said. “I have so many more people in my corner now and so many people I can turn to when I feel like I want to just be more involved.”
Conversations during the summit sparked memories of attending powwows and dressing in regalia during her childhood. More importantly, it broadened her understanding of the diversity within Native communities, helping her solidify her place within that larger world. She was thrilled by the discovery: “It just made me so happy because I feel like there’s so many other parts of me that I was able to discover and so many other people that I was able to meet. I just feel like it just helps me feel more whole.”
Jones’s heritage stretches back through her mother’s side to the Fisher River Cree Nation and Peguis First Nation in Manitoba. Her childhood trips to Canada with her family laid a foundational knowledge she is now actively expanding. The overwhelming theme she continually realizes is the deep sense of kindness and respect ingrained in the community. “I continue to realize how much the community is full of love and how we’re just always taught to treat everyone with kindness and respect everyone,” she said.
Identity as a Performance Edge
As a student athlete of Black and Native American descent, Jones connects her diverse identity directly to her presence and performance on the court. She noted the difficulty of building confidence in settings where she does not see many others who look like her. Jones hopes that by embracing who she is, she can inspire other Native American and Black girls scanning the room for representation.
For Jones, the through line is simple: confidence. “The more confident you are about who you are and your values and where you come from, the better you play,” she stated. Her message to the next wave of student athletes is simple but intentional: “Be authentically you. You’re created the way you are for a reason,” she said. “If you’re not being who you are, you kind of get lost, but just being authentically you is the biggest part because living that way you’re finding so many more communities and so many more people who help you be yourself and live a better life.”
Jones is part of a rising wave of Native American representation in college sports. In the 2024-25 academic year, there were 2,364 Native American student athletes across NCAA divisions, marking a 35% increase since 2014-15.
Family Built by College Sports
Jones comes from a highly competitive family defined by college athletics. Her mother played basketball at the University of Winnipeg and professionally overseas, and her father played basketball at Maryland. Her siblings also pursued college sports, including an older sister who played volleyball at Maryland, a brother who is a senior basketball player at Charleston Southern, and a sister who rows at Drexel. Her twin sister also plays volleyball at Arizona.
“The family aspect made us all just compete more in our own respective sports and then it made us all want it more for each other and for ourselves,” Jones said. She emphasized the profound impact of her parents, who were the first in their families to attend college. “They paved the way for us, and they made us want it more for each other,” she said. “We just connected through sports.”
The Pittsburgh Fit
Jones chose Pittsburgh because the program prioritizes people and values above all else. She describes the program as a family that provides a supportive environment on and off the court. “The people is what makes it just a beautiful program to be a part of,” she said. “We value relationships. We value being a family and just making sure our program is something that you can always run back to.”
The coaching staff, including head coach Dan Fisher and associate head coach Kellen Petrone, has consistently invested in Jones, ensuring she receives extra reps and targeted feedback after tough practices or games. That steady confidence from the staff helped her translate potential into high level production, allowing her to play with freedom. As a freshman, Jones started all but one match, finished third on the team in blocks, and earned Atlantic Coast Conference All Freshman honors.
Jones experienced Pittsburgh’s historic run to their fourth straight NCAA semifinals in 2024. While the season ended short of a national title, the journey proved inspiring. “Even though it didn’t turn out how we wanted it to and we didn’t get the final win that we wanted, I just feel like it made us all want it even more,” she said. “We learned so much from that season.”