Munoz Happy for Happy Ending
by Frank Burlison, Long Beach Press-Telegram
April 14, 2005 Paul Munoz and fellow seniors Yassir Sliti and Nate Hagstrom might be playing their final home volleyball match in Long Beach State uniforms in the Walter Pyramid tonight when the 49ers take on top-ranked UCLA in a 7:30 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation contest. But if he and his buddies have their way, they'll still be digging, passing, setting, hitting and blocking for a bit longer than three more weeks.
"I'm fired up and ready to finish up here and go out with a (national championship ring),'' Munoz said Tuesday afternoon before he and the rest of coach Alan Knipe's No. 4-ranked 49ers took the floor for practice.
The NCAA championship semifinal matches will be played May 5 and 7 at UCLA.
"That's been the goal since Day 1,'' he said.
Munoz, the team's libero, turned 22 on Feb. 9 when the 49ers hooked up with the Bruins in Pauley Pavilion.
He's had better birthdays -Long Beach was swept, the second time UCLA has beaten the 49ers 3-0 this season (they played in a tournament in Santa Barbara to open the season on Jan. 7).
But the 49ers (18-9, 12-8) are playing their best volleyball of the season, having won nine of their past 11 matches going into the final two matches of the regular season tonight and Saturday (at UC Irvine).
And a big reason has been the defense and passing of Munoz, a 2001 Mater Dei High graduate who grew up in a family whose members know their way around the Long Beach campus about as well as does Dr. Robert C. Maxson.
His parents (mother, Rosemary, and father, Ben) are graduates of the school, as is older sister Patty. Brother Jimmy will graduate this semester, and Munoz will end the semester just three classes short of his degree in psychology.
"He's rock solid in serving and receiving,'' Knipe said of the 6foot-3 Munoz. "And he's the best passing libero (defensive specialist) in the country.''
Munoz, a third-team all-MPSF selection as a junior, came to Long Beach as a walk-on after playing on two Mater Dei teams that reached CIF Southern Section title matches.
There are only 22 NCAA Division I men's programs, so scholarships at the elite programs are at a premium.
In almost any other sport, a player of Munoz's abilities would have had a multitude of Division I offers to sort through.
"I was going to Irvine Valley Community College as an outside hitter,'' Munoz said. "But then, right after the Junior Olympics (when his club team won a gold medal in Phoenix in June of 2001, the opportunity to come here came about a month and a half before classes started.''
By the time Knipe and his staff were watching Munoz in daily workouts, it was apparent that the one-time football teammate of USC Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Matt Leinart at Mater Dei was going to demand almost immediate playing time.
"He just worked his butt off,'' Knipe said. "And by the second semester, he was right in the thick of it.''
Munoz is used to overcome obstacles.
Earning his way onto one of the premier volleyball programs in the country was nothing compared to bouncing back from the injuries he suffered while being involved in a car accident while sitting in the passenger seat on the way to Mater Dei during the fall of his junior year.
"It's still tough to talk about it,'' he said, pausing to collect his words. "I got a separated shoulder, some broken ribs and needed surgery on my right elbow.''
He was hospitalized for a week and missed about a month of classes.
"It was a struggle,'' he said. "I kept asking `Why me?' But it ultimately made me a stronger person. I learned to take nothing for granted.''
Initially he was told his volleyball career might have ended on that Santa Ana street.
Ultimately, he was on the floor as a starter for Mater Dei that January.
Tell Munoz he might not ever play volleyball again, or that maybe he was going to a Long Beach State program at which he might not ever be good enough to play much, and he reacts the same way.
His on-court answers are more succinct than any verbal response he could have offered.
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