A women's volleyball team went undefeated across seven matches to capture gold at the 2026 World ParaVolley World Championship next month, and the athletes behind that run practice every morning inside a wellness center in Edmond. The U.S. Women's Sitting National Team trains at the University of Central Oklahoma, a campus that quietly functions as the sport's national headquarters even though most Oklahomans have likely never heard of it.
An Undefeated Run to Gold
On July 17, the U.S. women beat Brazil 3-1 in the championship final, completing a 7-0 tournament sweep, according to KOCO. The win capped a broader 2026 season in which the squad compiled a 15-2 overall record, including a 4-0 sweep at the USAV Cup and a bronze-medal finish at the Dutch Tournament, according to USA Volleyball. The team entered the World Championship ranked No. 1 in the world.
Bill Hamiter, director of USA Volleyball's sitting national teams, has described the program as something of a well-kept secret, per KOCO's reporting. Hamiter said the athletes are world-class competitors whose disabilities do not define them, and he has led the women's program since 2009 while also overseeing national sitting volleyball operations at UCO, per the same account.
Edmond's Unique Training Status
The University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond was designated an official U.S. Paralympic Training Site in 2005 and added official U.S. Olympic status in 2009, making it the only university in the country to hold both designations at once. UCO earned that distinction in part by hosting the annual Endeavor Games, an adaptive sports competition the university has run since 2000 that has grown into the nation's largest multi-sport event for athletes with physical disabilities, drawing children, adults, and wounded military veterans each summer.
That infrastructure now supports a hybrid training model for USA Sitting Volleyball. Resident athletes live in Edmond and practice five mornings a week at UCO's Wellness Center, while non-resident athletes train in their home states and join the team for periodic national camps. The program's administrative offices sit on the second floor of the same building, according to research compiled from official program materials.
Faces Behind the Team
Nicky Nieves, a two-time Paralympic gold medalist on the women's roster, was born without her left hand and played standing NCAA Division II volleyball at Queens College in New York before joining the sitting national team. She founded the adaptive sports nonprofit Limitless People Inc. and was elected to USA Volleyball's Board of Directors in 2021. Nieves has said sitting volleyball increased her confidence and gave her a supportive community, according to KOCO.
On the men's side, team captain Roderick Green was born with fibula hemimelia and had a below-the-knee amputation at age two. He played college basketball on scholarship and won three Paralympic track and field medals in 2000 and 2004 before switching to sitting volleyball, where he was later named USA Volleyball's Male Sitting Player of the Year in 2016. Green has said the ultimate goal in sport is to be number one, per KOCO's report, and the U.S. men's team has already qualified for the Paralympic Games.
A Sport With Its Own Rulebook
Sitting volleyball is a distinct variation of the standard game, played by athletes sitting on their bottoms throughout each rally. Regulation matches are held on a 10-by-6-meter court with a net height of 1.15 meters for men and 1.05 meters for women, and players must maintain floor contact with their pelvis or bottom whenever they touch the ball, a rule that also permits blocking serves, according to USA Volleyball's official rules.
Under Hamiter's leadership, the women's program has built a dynasty, winning three consecutive Paralympic gold medals at Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020, and Paris 2024, where the U.S. beat rival China 3-1 in the final. Hamiter was named the 2024 USOPC Paralympic Coach of the Year in April 2025 and received USA Volleyball's highest honor, the Harold T. Friermood Lifetime Achievement Award, at the Hall of Fame ceremony in May.
Looking Ahead to Home Soil
With the Los Angeles Games on the horizon in 2028, the U.S. sitting volleyball program is now aiming to defend its title on home turf. The teams have said fostering a sense of community remains central to the program's identity as much as winning, even as the roster carries athletes with a wide range of unique disabilities into the next Paralympic cycle.
