LIMA — Nakiya Sigman, a 17-year-old senior at Lima Senior High School, is hoping her experience in sports translates into a career after college.
Sigman is a star on the Lady Spartans basketball team, reaching the 1,000 career point plateau in December, a feat only accomplished by 10 other players at Lima Senior.
She hopes to attend college on a scholarship and wants to study psychology.
“I actually want to be a sports psychologist, just because I think the mental aspect of the game and for me, obviously is basketball. But for any athlete in their sport, the mental aspect of their sport is very important and sometimes it’s really overlooked,” Sigman said.
Sigman has seen first-hand the pressures of playing sports at a high level.
“Especially my sophomore year, I was actually having headaches — migraines that would cause me to basically pass out. They (the doctors) went through all the tests, thought it was my heart, thought it was basically seizures and come to find out it was just from stress and anxiety and just me not being able to cope with it,” Sigman said.
She’s been able to deal with the stress now through different techniques.
“It stemmed from basketball being sometimes stressful and just a lot of pressure put on me. Sometimes it was hard to handle with school and so that definitely that going into sports psychology definitely stemmed from that — my own personal experience,” Sigman said.
Sigman is involved in DECA where she’s the secretary/treasurer of the Lima Senior High School chapter and she recently joined the Black Student Union.
Like many students, she had to pivot to online learning in March.
“It was definitely a learning experience, especially it being so unexpected. I think, for at least our school district, teachers and students were really trying to learn together. There were some teachers who overworked us and there are some teachers that didn’t give us enough work so it was a learning curve for all of us,” Sigman said.
She appreciates being able to be back in class for her senior year.
“I definitely feel a difference, just being in person. Human contact is a big thing. I think it can also help mental health. Having that in-person contact is able to explain things to you in a different way than they do in emails. I think it’s a big difference,” Sigman said.
Sigman
Reach Sam Shriver at 567-242-0409.
