Tarr Fitting in Quite Well
by Matt Zimmerman, Long Beach Press-Telegram
April 6, 2006 Robert Tarr never played a single moment of high school volleyball. He describes his first days at Long Beach State as "star struck," since the core of the 2004 national runners-up was still in place when he arrived in the fall of 2002. Yet, the senior outside hitter is a stalwart for the seventh-ranked Long Beach State men's volleyball team as the 49ers host No. 2 BYU in pivotal Mountain Pacific Sports Federation matches tonight and Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Walter Pyramid.
"As I progressed, I realized I could play with these guys, and maybe even be better sometime," Tarr said. "My junior year, last year, was when I realized that I really had to step up, because they had just graduated and we had almost a whole new team. That's when I really realized I need to pick it up, start playing really well."
Because Rocklidge High in his hometown of Rocklidge, Fla. did not have a boys volleyball team, Tarr traveled 90 minutes from Rocklidge to Orlando, where he played for the Orlando Gold Volleyball Club. He visited schools including Ohio State, UC Santa Barbara, Cal State Northridge and USC, but Tarr's visit to Long Beach proved decisive as he was impressed with coach Alan Knipe and his staff, as well as the camaraderie among the 49ers.
Tarr had been expected to redshirt his freshman season in 2003, but midway through found himself contributing more than he had expected.
"I had never played this level of volleyball before coming in, so I wasn't playing as well until about that point in the season (when) I started playing really well in practice," Tarr said.
"(Coaches) asked me if I'd come out, and told me I'd start if I came out. I definitely don't regret it, it was a good decision."
Tarr made a major contribution for that team, which rallied from a 4-6 MPSF start to finish 11-11 and reach the postseason with an eighth-place finish in what is considered the best conference in the nation.
"He was such a dominant force on the second team that it just got to the point that well, hey, if we're not stopping him in practice, I don't think many of the other teams are going to probably stop him," Knipe said. "The nice thing was, some of the struggles we had that year early on, he wasn't with us on the road, he wasn't traveling, so he didn't even know anything about it. All he knew was go out and play volleyball, which was almost a refreshing break, refreshing for our team. He did fine obviously, and he's been very good ever since."
For the 2004 NCAA finalists, Tarr was sixth on a deep team with 2.12 kills per game. As a junior last season, his efforts helped lead the team to the MPSF final, and earned him a first-team All-American berth and a spot in the World University Games last summer.
Tarr was joined on that team by two 49er teammates in first-team All-American setter Tyler Hildebrand and then-senior libero Paul Munoz.
"Physically, not much, but mentally, he's become a much better player. He's figuring out that not too many guys can stop him," Hildebrand said of Tarr's improvement. "He was so unbelievably physical. He could jump and swing as well as anybody in the country since he's been a freshman."
And now that he has added experience to that talent, Tarr continues to place his name in the annals of LBSU men's volleyball.
"If you look at the history of our program, I don't know how many first-team All-Americans we have, but it's in the teens, probably," Knipe said. "It's not like there's hundreds of them. So he's in a very elite group already as a junior. And he's going to be one again as a senior. So he should definitely not be in awe of anyone who's played in the program, he's done just as much if not more than a lot of them."
For the record, 49ers have been named first-team All-Americans 22 times in the program's 36-season history.
"I can't imagine going anywhere else," Tarr said. "Long Beach has been great, and the best is yet to come, hopefully, this year." |
