In sports, we often talk about teams that set trends for future generations. In basketball, we talk about the 1992 Olympic team led by Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson. The 1992 Dream Team is considered the basketball team that helped globalize basketball and led to the rise of international stars in the 30 years since they won gold. Volleyball had its own Dream Team, also known as Team Dream. OWN recently chronicled their story in a one-hour documentary, directed by North Carolina Central alumna Bianca Barnes-Williams.

We Belong Here: The Story of Team Dream introduces audiences to 12 Black women volleyball players who competed in and won the 2018 USA Volleyball Open National Championship, going undefeated by winning 7 straight matches to make history. Former University of Texas volleyball stars Haley Eckerman and Khat Bell formed the team. What started as a bid to play with friends from across the nation became something bigger: representation on one of volleyball's biggest stages.

For Eckerman, that representation was personal. In an interview with HBCU Pulse on ClutchPoints, she reflected on how few Black volleyball players she had been able to watch growing up and how Team Dream could give young girls a different experience.

“There were a few volleyball players that were Black, like Flo Hyman, but, like, she was so much older than me. Didn't get to watch her play. But the people that I was looking up to and seeing constantly were white,” Eckerman said. “And so this kind of was a moment to allow us to bring in more Black girls to be more role models for those kids.”

The players brought more than talent to the court. Asked what separated Team Dream from its opponents, Eckerman pointed to the challenges its members had already faced within the sport.

“I think it was just handling adversity. And that's kinda what the documentary really talks about is like there's so many other things that we had to face growing up playing this sport that volleyball came easy to us,” she said. “So I don't think it was the volleyball piece, it was just that in those moments when things are hard, we knew how to handle them.”

That human story drew Barnes-Williams to the documentary. Although she did not consider herself a sports enthusiast, she saw a story she wanted to tell in the women and the community they built.

“However, I do like good story and I do pride myself on telling stories, and so that's what drew me to it. I love that they were Black women,” Barnes-Williams told HBCU Pulse on ClutchPoints. “I love that, um, they came to do something and, and there's just something, uh, community and binding about sports that…I don't know. This project spoke to me, and these ladies spoke to me.”

Barnes-Williams’ own path into television began taking shape at North Carolina Central. She recalled entering college without a clear career plan before a conversation in an elective communication class introduced her to a possibility she had not considered.

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“And I listened to some kids talking in a class one day in, like, a, a communication class that I just took as an elective, and I heard this girl say, ‘Yeah, I'm gonna be producing. Um, like, I have an internship at a news station in, in Raleigh.’ And I was like, ‘Internship, Raleigh, news station,’ and that's when it clicked for me,” she said.

Her connection to Central also echoes the documentary’s title. After attending schools where she was one of relatively few Black students, she found a sense of belonging on the HBCU’s campus.

“And so Central became my home. I went to that campus and I was like, ‘This is where I belong.’”

With We Belong Here, Barnes-Williams hopes audiences carry that same sense of possibility into their own lives, whether their ambitions lead them onto a volleyball court or somewhere else entirely.

“I think the main takeaway is that we do belong. There's no corner, there's no sport, there's no business, there's no career that we can't outshine, that we can't stand out, that we can't, like, sprinkle our Black girl magic, our Black boy magic into,” she said.

We Belong Here: The Story of Team Dream is available now on HBO Max.