Dessaa Legros just happened to catch some volleyball on television during the 2008 Summer Olympics.

She was glued to the screen. Thoughts of flipping channels or leaving the room never crossed her mind.

“It was crazy,” Allatoona’s senior outside hitter said. “I was like, ‘Oh my God. I can do that.’”

South Carolina ended up echoing her sentiments four year later.

After three seasons with the Lady Buccaneers — leading them to consecutive area titles over the last two years — and two years of club team play during Allatoona’s offseason, she developed into a ferocious net player.

The Gamecocks took interest in Legros and gave her an offer. Legros committed, becoming Allatoona’s first volleyball player to commit to major Division I program.

“My club coach (George Miller) once said ‘You work hard and do what I tell you to do, (and) you can get so (many) college offers,’” Legros said. “I couldn’t ever imagine playing in college. That was like a whole new creature to me.

“It was to the point where I was getting stressed out how many schools were talking to me. It was crazy.”

There were no thoughts of playing SEC volleyball three years ago. She dabbled with the thoughts of taking up volleyball her eighth grade year after watching the 2008 Summer Olympics and decided to tryout her freshman year.

Allatoona coach Aimee Howard said she remembered Legros showing up without a physical. Once all the mandatory requirements were taken care of, she was placed on the JV roster.

That all changed after a week when Howard watched her play for the first time.

“She’s got the highest jump I’ve ever seen in my life,” Howard said. “She was very raw and very out of control. It was the second year of the program (and bumping her to varsity) was one of those things. If it had been a few years later, I might not have done it, but it was the right time, right place kind of deal.”

Her athletic ability alone helped her outplay her JV teammates, having grown up playing basketball and running track, but she needed to acquire the skills to be an effective varsity player.

Her first taste of the varsity level under Howard turned out to be a different playing field than her brief experience on JV. Smashing the ball on the other side of the court was the easy part — Legros loved doing that — but she also had to acquire the other skills, strategy and the conditioning, and Howard helped her with that.

“She brought out a different side of me,” Legros said of her coach. “She made me work hard and she ran me whenever she felt like it. And when you think you’d do something right, she would teach me a better way to do it.”

Howard said Legros picked everything up so quickly that Howard requested that Legros play every position.

Although she had an enjoyable freshman season, Legros wasn’t quite committed. She went on to play basketball and run track. It wasn’t until her sophomore season when she realized she loved playing volleyball most. Helping Allatoona win its first area title in 6AAA also showed her potential.

And she was also making friends with her teammate and said one of them — former setter Xandy Green who is now playing for Piedmont College — talked her into playing club volleyball. Legros started out at Push 1 after her sophomore campaign before joining Volley One under Miller a year later.

Legros’ game took off from there and college coaches came flocking.

She could have likely gone to many schools in the Southeast but she chose South Carolina for a reason.

“Sometimes when you meet a person, you bond with them,” Legros said. “That’s how I felt about the entire team. I felt like it wouldn’t be challenging to make friends with all of them. I felt like we’ve been friends for a long time.”

Legros shouldn’t have a problem fitting in. She has an outgoing personality among her teammates and smiles often. Howard hints she occasionally smiles too often, like after making a mistake, but her upbeat personality helped carry the Lady Buccaneers to another area title and a state quarterfinal berth in 2011.

Allatoona is still looking for its first win after six matches this season — the team’s still experimenting with setters to replace Green — but Legros remains optimistic.

“I just want this year to be the best we have,” said Legros switched from middle hitter to outside this season to prepare for her college career. “I want us to go further than any other year. I feel we have a lot to contribute.”