Wichita State’s Shimen Fayad’s stubborn streak gives way to new attitude

Jenny Whitledge estimates Shimen Fayad owns around 50 pairs of socks, most of them knee-high, brightly colored and an essential part of her identity.

“We call her ‘Sock Girl,’ ” Whitledge said. “I like the really bright ones. She’s got a couple pairs that are really neon and they are my favorite because they stand out the most.”

Socks aren’t the only thing that stand out about Fayad, a bouncy Canadian who sometimes dyes her hair blue, would rather bike or walk to class than drive, and can play all six rotations when things are going well.

Fifty pairs of socks, it turns out, is way conservative.

Fayad, a freshman Wichita State volleyball outside hitter, counts at least twice that many and that doesn’t include the ones she left behind in Victoria, British Columbia. They are stored in a plastic shoe organizer in her Wichita apartment, drawers and drawers filled with rainbow socks, flowered socks from Hawaii, socks with eagles and socks with leprechauns.

“Too many,” she said. “You can be wearing black shorts and a white shirt, but your socks gotta be good.”

Neon socks are one of the connections she keeps to home, one of the ways she works through the difficult adjustments that freshmen go through. She also collects hats — snapback, bucket, sun — to remind her of her skateboarding, snowboarding life on Canada’s West Coast, a look and lifestyle she shares with her younger brother, Basheer.

“If I’m having a bad day, I’m going to wear my most bright, outrageous socks because that’s the way I make myself feel better,” she said.

The bad days are fewer the more Fayad figures out how to play and how to let Chris Lamb’s coaching help her.

Fayad redshirted last season as she struggled against tougher competition and bigger athletes. She dealt with the feelings of insecurity and uncertainty that come with limited practice time and attention paid to redshirts. This season, she played through the ups and downs as she learned to listen to her coaches, adapt to WSU’s ever-changing strategies and keep working when playing time slipped.

“I had never been used to having to work for a spot before,” she said. “I was always No. 1, always the best, always the first choice. Coming here, It was a little bit of a slap in the face, ‘Hey Shimen, you need to wake up. You’ve got to work your way back up.’ ”

Fayad’s season is brightening again as WSU (26-8) enters NCAA Tournament play on Friday against Kansas State (17-11) on Friday at the Devaney Center in Lincoln, Neb. She earned All-Missouri Valley Conference Tournament honors after averaging 3.12 kills with a .333 attack percentage in wins over Northern Iowa and Missouri State.

“There’s no question this has been a growing year,” Lamb said. “It’s not the athlete. She’s totally got that. It’s understanding team volleyball.”

Fayad earned a spot on the MVC’s All-Freshman team despite some uneven performances. After recording eight or more kills in 10 straight matches, her production slipped in late October. The MVC Tournament put her back on track, she believes.

“I had to put my own little puzzle together,” she said. “This past weekend, I finally figured it out. I gave it all I had and I finally found how to play that way.”

The biggest piece to the puzzle for Fayad is taking coaching and applying those lessons. She came to WSU used to physically dominating competition. It took time for those instructions to soak in.

“The biggest part for me is mentally,” she said. “I’m really competitive and stubborn and I’ve never really been coachable.”

Fayad’s frustrations started during two-a-day practices before her redshirt season in 2014. She couldn’t score against blockers who were five and six inches taller. By the spring, she began to adjust to hit over or off the blocks. Drills that forced her to hit as hard as she could as high as she could took her focus off smashing the ball down and retooled her approach to scoring.

“She’s been a lot more coachable,” said Whitledge, a sophomore outside hitter and close friend. “She’s learning how to do shots and rolls and tips, just being very open-minded to when the coaches tell her that there’s a spot open. She doesn’t just do her way; she listens to some of what the coaches say.”

Fayad’s progress took another step in the past two weeks when her father suggested she watch YouTube videos of her opponents to supplement WSU’s video work and scouting reports. She is more comfortable visualizing an opponent after watching video than planning based on a scouting report.

“I’ve never been someone that is really good at looking at a paper and looking at numbers … and can tell by a girl’s numbers or by lines drawn on a court on a piece of paper how we’re going to play against her,” she said. “For me, it’s a lot of watching and reading people hit and body language. I would play it in my head as we got closer and closer to the game … instead of having to think about it and then I get stressed out about it and then I get anxiety because I’m ‘Oh crap, I’m going to mess up,’ … and then I could get taken out.”

When Fayad struggled this season and lost playing time, attack errors usually cause the problems. Against Indiana State in late October, she took 15 swings and committed seven errors. In the MVC Tournament, she totaled six errors on 57 swings.

“A lot of times you find yourself fighting with really competitive people,” Lamb said. “It’s exciting she’s getting more and more comfortable with change. Shimen is a gifted athlete, jumps out of the building. The volleyball she played leading up to this was very much ‘just dunk.’ Now there are big physical girls in front of her and she’s got to move the ball around.”

This story was originally published December 2, 2015 at 5:03 PM with the headline "Wichita State’s Shimen Fayad’s stubborn streak gives way to new attitude."