Getty Image
Kayla Simmons may well have pursued a career in professional volleyball.
And odds are, she would’ve been pretty successful had that been the path that she had chosen.
After all, Simmons finished her college career with over 2,000 assists for Conference USA’s Marshall Thundering Herd. The 5-foot-9-inch Gainesville, Florida native certainly left her mark on the program.
Though she had plenty of other options as well. Simmons began her foray into modeling and social media influencing while still in school at Marshall.
This was something the school wasn’t always entirely supportive of.
“Being a former college athlete and growing up around sports has taught me to push myself to the limit,” Simmons said in 2019 while applying to a spot in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. “College athletics was a great experience for me, but it also taught me some valuable lessons. I was told by my school administrators that the pictures I post are inappropriate because of my body, I was even asked to delete my Instagram at one point. I was torn bc I felt I couldn’t embrace my body & play the sport I love. I’ve since learned that you can’t let other people affect how you feel about yourself.”
Thankfully for Simmons, she tuned out the haters. The blonde bombshell now has a jaw-dropping one-million-plus followers on Instagram and an incredibly successful modeling career.
And it’s not hard to see why with viral posts like the one she shared on Monday.
Simmons posted an Instagram reel of herself in a crop top sweater and skirt with the simple caption: “Monday fit.”
Clearly, her followers like the fit as within a day the post gained over 20,000 likes and has nearly 300 comments. Maybe Simmons could’ve starred had she continued on with volleyball. But it sure seems like the alternative worked out for her.