FRANKLIN — When you're 6'10" tall with a 7'2" wingspan, you tend to get noticed.
"Yeah I mean it definitely helps, but the work has to be there," Nicodemus Meyer says. "I think if I wasn't this height, it would definitely be more difficult. But I think a lot of people mistake me for just being a tall kid, and I wanna know that I got that work ethic and I'm going to outwork the next person next to me so."
"First time I saw him was 8th grade. We were holding open gyms at the middle school. And he grabbed a volleyball. And there was a basketball hoop down, and he was going up and dunking a volleyball into the basketball hoop," Franklin Boys Volleyball Head Coach Chris Dibb says.
Meet Franklin volleyball senior Nicodemus Meyer. I'm a foot shorter. And even socially distanced, I don't measure up to this high schooler.
Even more shocking than his height is his wingspan.
"I think it's 7'2," Meyer says. "So it's big, but there's people bigger."
"When he walks in the gym, you definitely notice. You know, he's got the size and now he's got the muscle mass and everything else and looks like a man out there," Dibb says.
Big name. Big frame. Big game. And hey, when Nicodemus, or Deem as his friends call him, gets it going, he can talk a good game too.
"You're not supposed to talk at all, but I give a little extra whenever I get a good hit like that," Meyer says.
Now the late bloomer is on the climb, and eventually headed to Loyola on a Division One volleyball scholarship.
"It's exciting for Nicodemus for sure, you know it's good for our program too. It sheds a light on it," Dibb says.
But first, he wants a third straight trip to state.
"I didn't have any like personal goals or selfish goals or like wanted to All-State or break any of the school records up here. I don't care about any of that. But I've said since we went sophomore year that I want to be the only person to go three times. So, that's my one thing I'm pushing for this year. I've talked about it since the beginning of the year, it's state or bust," said Meyer.
Scary thing is, he's continuing to get better.
