Flourishing through change, Hammond’s Safi Hampton has a bright future

Just before every volleyball match, Hammond’s Safi Hampton removes the silver pendant from around her neck.

On one side is etched “God is change.” The other holds her father’s fingerprint. Dr. Greg Hampton was his daughter’s biggest fan. Although he passed away three years ago, she knows he still is. She believes he’s watching her as she holds that pendant before tucking it away to step on the court.

“My dad and I were really close,” said Hampton, who received the pendant from her mother after he died. “My dad had always been like, ‘God is change, everything is constantly changing and God is in everything,’ so I thought that was cool.”

She often thinks about all the things that have changed for her since his passing. She committed to play volleyball at North Carolina. She recently submitted her college application. She got her driver’s license over the summer. She got a job.

“I think that my life has changed a lot since he passed away, but just in general I’m happy that I’m doing all these great things… I’m doing all this grown up stuff. It makes me like, ‘Wow, he’s really missing this,’ but I feel like it would make him happy to see me progressing in volleyball and getting so much better, because he put in a lot of work with me. We would go to the gym every Friday, to Maryland Juniors, and work out because I’m like, ‘I need to be better,’ and we would work out for hours.”

For Hampton, 17, volleyball has been an important constant through all the change.

A powerful 6-foot outside hitter who can jump touch 10-feet, 8 inches, Hampton has emerged as one of the Baltimore area’s best players.

“The first time I watched her play, I was blown away,” said Reservoir coach Carole Ferrante, who saw her in a club match before she was a freshman.

“She gets in the air and can just fly. There’s something about the way that she moves that she can get from one side of the court to the other in three or four steps and she just has this tremendous ability to get up. She’s just a very dynamic, strong player. She’s fun to watch.”

Hampton’s father helped her choose the sport and eventually train for many extra hours with the goal of playing Division I volleyball.

A former Olympic Development Soccer player, she began to concentrate on volleyball her freshman year at Hammond. She made varsity and earned first-team All-Howard County honors which she also earned last year after skipping the COVID-shortened spring 2020 schedule because it conflicted with club season.

She started playing at the Columbia Volleyball Academy at 12 and soon, “It was my favorite thing ever.”

Hampton said she preferred the culture of volleyball over soccer, especially how the players come together after every point to celebrate a great play or support each other after a mistake.

She also felt she was physically a good fit for volleyball.

“Because I’ve always been taller than everyone and skinnier… I didn’t really have the body type for soccer I don’t think, and I was like, ‘I’m built to play this sport and I could be good at this,’ and I like being good at things. When I first started playing volleyball, I was nervous. I’m like, ‘I don’t know how to do this,’ but my body just like figured it out.’”

At 14, she moved to the Metro Volleyball Club of DC, again after a little research by her father. Last summer, her Metro 17 Travel team finished 19th in the USA Volleyball Girls Junior National Championship Open Division, the top division.

Her Metro coach, Corey Hobson, relied on her to play every rotation while, at the net, she learned not to be afraid of making mistakes but rather to be bold and go for the big points.

“She’s just an athletic, explosive machine,” Hobson said. “We ran a really fast offense last year and she’s not a kid who needed a big windup for a slow arm. She gets her arm back so fast, she’s hitting just as hard. She accelerates so quickly and she sees the game really well. Her IQ is up there. Whether she’s in the back row or the front row, she can really read the game very well.”

At Hammond, the Golden Bears don’t have the depth of club veterans to help Hampton shine the way she does in club volleyball. The Bears are 5-7 heading into the final week of the regular-season, but six of their losses are to Top 15 teams.

Hampton averages 3.9 kills per set for the Bears. Through the first 11 matches, she had 138 kills with a hitting percentage of .389 as well as 16 total blocks, 103 digs and 32 aces.

“Her skill and her talent is just innate,” Hammond coach Anne Corey said. “She can place the ball anywhere she wants. She’s got that volleyball touch that you can’t necessarily coach. I’ve coached very few girls in my 10 years who can put a ball so close to, if not inside, the 10-foot line.”

With her club success, Hampton doesn’t need to play for Hammond, but she never considered skipping a fall high school season.

“I like that it’s different,” she said. “In club, I’m very driven to win… I can be fully locked in on my performance. Playing for Hammond, I get to help people. I get to teach more and I’ve learned to really enjoy that. They want me to help them and I love that. I feel like we’ve gotten better and that’s so cool and I was a part of that.”

Hammond teammate Jariah Nash, another senior captain, said the Bears look up to Hampton not only because she’s so good, but because she has an easy leadership style that helps everyone get along.

“It’s really fun playing with Safi,” Nash said. “She brings the energy. When she knows someone’s being down on themselves in practice, she hypes them up. When somebody has a question about what to do, where to be, she answers it very well. She’s just a supportive individual.”

A well-rounded teenager who is very close to her mother, Dr. Maria Trent, and her brother Hodari, a soccer-playing Hammond freshman, Hampton doesn’t spend all her time in the gym. She also plays the upright bass and electric bass and loves to paint and draw.

She carries a 4.36 weighted GPA and plans to major in marketing at North Carolina, her mother’s alma mater, with a minor in graphic design.

Still, she’s thrilled to play Division I volleyball and would like to play overseas for a couple years after college before settling into a career.

Corey has no doubt she will succeed.

“I know that she can do anything that she puts her mind to,” Corey said. “She is extremely driven. I’ve just seen her confidence grow and her leadership skills have grown. Her freshman year, I would have been a little bit more worried about her being a commanding presence in the room. She was a little bit more timid and now I’ve seen her flourish into this really excited player who wants to help people both on and off the court, a leader and she’s really been that mentor for so many players here.”