TALLAHASSEE — There’s a bracelet that Gella Andrew never takes off. She wears it even when she’s playing beach volleyball. Even when she’s lifting weights or doing rehab. It isn’t gaudy or expensive, just a simple, cheap piece of “jewelry,” if one can call it that, with a one-word reminder: “Resilience.” 

She’s taken it off just once, though that wasn’t necessarily her choice: The first one she owned broke, proving that the bracelet perhaps should have heeded its own messaging to be a touch more resilient. She, on the other hand, has heeded the message just fine. 

“That grittiness is so important,” Florida State’s sophomore blocker said. “I feel like I’ve always been an underrated player. Resilience is an important thing to me, and I just never feel like I’m out of a match.”

Indeed, take inventory of her debut season in Tallahassee, and you’ll notice an undeniable trend: No matter the score, no matter the result of the first set, or how big a hole she may have dug with her regular partner on court two, Madison Trusty, Andrew was never out of a match. It quickly became something of a running joke, that it wouldn’t be a proper Florida State Beach Volleyball match without a dramatic finish from Andrew and Trusty or, earlier in the year, Andrew and Myriah Massey, with whom she played four matches. There was a stretch, from February 27 through March 7, where Andrew went to three sets in six of seven matches. She won five of those, including a sweep-sealing 15-12 win over Texas. By season’s end, she’d win eight of her 12 matches that went to three and 24 of 37 total on the year, numbers that would earn her CCSA Freshman of the Year and establish her as a pillar not just of resilience, but consistency in the face of high-pressure situations. 

“Resilience really is how I like to live my life. Things are going to be hard, but you can be harder, you know?” Andrew said. “Stay hard. In volleyball and anything else, life’s hard.” 

Life can be particularly difficult as a freshman athlete, especially for one who has moved across the country, from Austin, Texas, to Tallahassee, Florida, while making a massive jump in level, from juniors to court two, where she would play against bona fide professionals. Then again, she’d already made that jump in a way. 

Tim Wooliver, her longtime coach in Austin, stopped training juniors when everyone in Andrew’s club graduated, so Andrew jumped into groups with the local professionals, getting reps with Tory Paranagua, a former Seminole who made  her first professional main draw in 2016; Andrea Nucette-Elliott; Avery Poppinga, another former Seminole who has been playing on the AVP Tour since 2022; Natalie Robinson, the all-time wins leader at Washington who is most known for stunning top-seeded Betsi Flint and Julia Donlin at the 2023 Manhattan Beach Open (which Donlin and Flint would go on to win); and Jen Keddy, an AVP champion, among others. 

“Playing at that level helps you rise faster because you have to,” Andrew said. “You have to get going.”

She got going herself this summer. She teamed up with fellow sophomore Jordan Boulware and qualified in AVP Denver and nearly shocked No. 1 seed Devon Newberry and Jaden Whitmarsh, losing 14-16 in the third set to a pair who won a bronze medal at a Challenge event on the Beach Pro Tour earlier this summer. She almost made another main draw, at the AVP Manhattan Beach Open, teaming up with USC’s Zoey Henson to make an admirable run into the final qualifying round, losing to Anaya Evans and former ‘Nole Torrey Van Winden, 22-24, 21-16, 10-15. Evans and Van Winden would go on to finish seventh. 

Now Andrew is bringing that experience back to Tallahassee where, beyond her obvious physical improvements, she has settled into a quiet leadership role. Never the loudest on the court, Andrew simply sets a towering example to follow. It hasn’t gone unnoticed. Several of the new faces on the team regularly turn to Andrew when they have questions. Even when they don’t, she’s checking in – the same thing captain Carra Sassack and Trusty did for her when she was a freshman. That type of leadership – quiet, more relational than vocal – is one of the many variables that allowed Andrew to thrive in the perhaps unexpected manner she did as a freshman on court two on a program that was ranked as high as No. 5 in the country. 

“It was better than I could have imagined,” she said of her freshman year. “So many awesome people, so many challenges. Playing at the twos is scary, you play against so many people who have so much experience and years on you. Some of them were 24. I feel really grateful for the opportunities to push myself. 

“I don’t know what I was expecting. I just wanted to play. Playing that high is not super common so I was surprised by that. Playing with Trusty was so fun. She never ever gets rattled. She’s always supportive, never gets mad, trusts that it’s going to happen. There’s something about her that’s calming to me.”

It allowed Andrew to be, well, Andrew, both on the court and off, something she valued more than she can express. 

“I’m not uncomfortable being myself and being weird. I am weird and that’s fine,” she said with a laugh. “There’s so many awesome, weird people on this team. We don’t need to be normal. We have such a family here.”

A family built on, amongst many things, hard work and, you guessed it: Resilience. 

“The way we go about training here – we train really hard,” she said. “That builds such a close connection and confidence because we know we’re physically fit, mentally fit. We’re ready. I couldn’t be happier with my decision.”

Listen to Andrew on the SandyNoles Podcast by clicking here.

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).