Kroneberger Knows Long-Term Goals
by Frank Burlison, Long Beach Press-Telegram
November 25, 2005 Unlike so many other recent or soon-to-be college graduates, Sara Kroneberger knows what she is going to be doing, long term, to earn paychecks.
Here's a hint:
She's expecting to hear a lot of second- or third-graders greet her with ``Good morning, Miss Kroneberger!'' on a full-time basis as soon as next fall, and, she hopes, in a classroom not all that far away she may be playing her final regular-season volleyball match as a member of the Long Beach State program Saturday night.
Kroneberger, a defensive specialist for Coach Brian Gimmillaro's 49ers, picked up her bachelor's degree in Anthropology last spring.
She doesn't plan to use the diploma as a ticket to any Indiana Jones-type adventures, though.
Even as she was wrapping up her upper-division anthropology coursework a year ago, she already knew she was on a path to a career path different than most of the students who sat in those classrooms with her.
``I had to declare a major by the end of my sophomore year (as required by NCAA regulations),'' she said. ``I'd taken an (introduction to) anthropology class and I thought it was some amazing stuff. So I was hooked. And I knew that for what (career) I wanted, my major wasn't going to matter.''
That's why she's currently working on a ``multiple subjects'' teaching credential.
``I love kids,'' she said. ``They look up to you so innocently and whatever you say, they tend to believe. So I thought I might as well do whatever I can to help children.''
Kroneberger will do her student teaching in the spring semester but hasn't received her assignment yet.
But the Los Alamitos High graduate makes little secret that her heartstrings are tethered to the Long Beach area.
``My first priority would be to work in the Long Beach Unified School district,'' she said this week.
``I'm at Tucker Elementary (where her mother, Yvonne Kroneberger, is a second-grade teacher) once a week, working with kids. All of the teachers I've worked with there are the nicest people in the world. They have so much energy and are so patient with their kids.''
Although her mother only went into teaching three years ago, Sara Kroneberger has apparently seen it as her calling for a lot longer.
``It's just something that I've thought about doing for a long time,'' she said.
Her volleyball coach has no doubt that it's an ideal vocation for Kroneberger.
``She will be a great teacher,'' Gimmillaro said.
``I've always been impressed with people who have more to say than they actually do (say). And she has that quality. In times of crisis (with the team), and at the appropriate time, she will say what needs to be said. I'm always amazed how much perspective she has. She's insightful beyond her (22) years.''
Kroneberger's LBSU volleyball career illustrates the kind of work ethic and fortitude that Gimmillaro believes will translate well into her career as a teacher and, possibly, a coach.
She was a hitter at Los Alamitos but Gimmillaro, who had watched her play since his California Juniors program as an eighth-grader, believed she could help the 49ers as a back row player (defensively specialist).
But her debut as a 49er was delayed by a year when she suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee on May 21 of senior year while playing in club competition.
After spending her first year on campus rehabbing the knee, she made her debut as a red-shirt freshman during the 2002 season and has been a regular contributor ever since.
But that wasn't the end of her rehabbing.
Like most volleyball players, pre- and post-practice stops in the trainers' room are so much a part of the daily ritual that then don't even consider them as part of a ``ritual''.
``The hours (being worked on by members of LBSU training staff) have been countless,'' she said, laughing.
She underwent more surgery on her right knee in January of 2004 (``there were some bone fragments that needed to be removed,'' she mentions, matter-of-factly).
She also spent all of this past January with her left foot immobilized because of a stress fracture.
And, during the October week this season that the 49ers had crucial Big West Conference matches with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and UC Santa Barbara on tap at home, who was the player with enough ice strapped to her right wrist to service a good-sized hotel ``mini-bar''?
``I got (dug) a ball wrong and jammed it,'' she said.
The x-rays didn't show a fracture but a MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) exam was suggested to determine the full extent of any damage.
She passed, figuratively, so she can keep passing and digging, literally, for the rest of a season that will extend into her final NCAA Tournament next week.
There will be plenty of time for an MRI later.
``There was no way I was going to miss that match against Santa Barbara,'' she said.
And, after enduring seven consecutive losses to the Gauchos, Kroneberger –- and her heavily taped right wrist --- had a major impact on the 49ers' first victory over a UCSB team since 2001.
It was Kroneberger's kill that clinched Game 2 of an eventual sweep of the Gauchos, a victory that propelled the 49ers to a share of the Big West title for the first time since 2001.
Because the team had used up its allotment of substitutions of Game 2, Kroneberger had rotated into the frontline before Dyanne Lawlor set her for the winning point.
Her vertical leap in celebration of the kill may have been the most impressive athletic fete of the evening.
``I felt like (teammate) Alexis (Crimes, the most explosive jumper in the program) for a minute,'' she said.
Thing goodness for digital recording devices.
It will make a nice video to bring to her classroom some day.
After all, even teachers can participate in ``show and tell''.
Isnt' that right, Ms. Kroneberger? |
