Brooke Williams, aka ‘Academic Weapon’ leads volleyball team that earns national award for its work in the classroom

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

So many crowd-pleasing highlights led Chesterton to its second sectional title and first since 1979, from Reese Dilbeck and Abby Parrish setting the steep, floor-shaking shots of highfliers Tenley Davis and Lucca Bombacino to Marissa Roe’s momentum-shifting blocks.
Yet, perhaps the most reliable of all factors in the Trojans’ winning culture went without a single mention, until now.
“We call Brooke Williams our Academic Weapon,” fourth-year head coach Lindsay Nibert said of the senior middle blocker. “Brooke Williams has over a 5.0 GPA. That girl could probably go to any college she probably ever wants to go to. She is so bright and it’s so cool to have her on our team and be able to say she is one of ours.”
Williams, ranks on top of the team’s GPA list, but it’s not as if she doesn’t have plenty of company in taking care of business in the classroom.
The Trojans were among the teams honored nationally by the American Volleyball Coaches Association with a 2025 Team Academic Award.
“We have smart kids,” Nibert said. “They’re naturally good, but we do stay on top of them with what they’re doing in the classroom as well.”
Conversations can be about something as seemingly simple as where they are sitting in the classroom. If they’re struggling, for example, Nibert suggest they sit up front. Also, she urges her students to avoid sitting near coughing classmates so that they don’t catch whatever bug that is making them cough.
In talking to her athletes about how to succeed in the classroom, Nibert also stresses the value of the most important word for any athletic program: communication.
“Communicating with their teachers that they have a busy schedule,” Nibert said. “There are going to be nights that they get home at 11 o’clock and they’re going to struggle with classes, and they’re going to need help and they’re going to need to reach out for help with the teachers. Having them learn to establish a relationship with their teachers helps because that’s going to be huge in college with their professors, communicating their needs with their professors.”
Team rules include several in the academic realm, including penalties for tardiness to a class.
“We have girls taking in-season AP (Advanced Placement), all these honors classes,” Nibert said. “That’s tough. These kids, they just make it happen. They stress over it, but they make it happen.”