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Ex-49ers Fill out U.S. Team
by Bob Keisser, Long Beach Press-Telegram
September 19, 2007
To get to Beijing, you use Mapquest or a Thomas Guide to find your way
to Long Beach State, and then head west.
That's not the route every member of the USA Volleyball men's team will
take to the 2008 Olympics, but it is the path that four members of the
team currently playing in the NORCECA Continental Championships at the
Anaheim Convention Center have blazed.
In this tourney's 12-man squad, four of the players are former 49er stars
who played for Ray Ratelle and Alan Knipe and earned college honors and
success before taking the next evolutionary step as members of the national
team program-Tom Hoff, Jim Polster, David Lee and Scott Touzinksy.
That doesn't include former 49er David McKienzie, who is on the larger
18-man national team and was part of the summer's silver medal Pan Am
Games team, or two younger 49ers, Tyler Hildebrand and Robert Tarr, who
played on the 2007 Southern California touring team and remain in the
national team mix.
That's a lot of black and gold in the red, white and blue.
Being from Long Beach State isn't a magic national team pill. Indeed,
the 34-year-old Hoff played his last season at Long Beach in 1996, and
Hildebrand and Tarr theirs in 2006, so it's not like they're intimates.
The differences between college and international volleyball, too, are
much larger than that of college and pro football.
"It's a nice bond," Hoff, a 6-8 middle blocker who competed
in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics, said. "It's nice to have some things
in common when you're together as much as we are. But I am so far removed
from my college days and some of these guys so beyond that, it doesn't
have a lot of impact."
"I think it helps, because you're always looking for continuity,"
said Hugh McCutcheon, the Kiwi-born head coach who replaced Doug Beal
as the national team coach after the 2004 Games. "They played for
a good program whose coaches have been involved in the national team."
The 28-year-old Polster believes the one common trait they have in common
is a work ethic they picked up as 49ers.
"Once you're here, you realize the jump from college to international
play is incredible," the 6-6 outside hitter who was part of the
49ers' 2001 Final Four squad said. "There are so many differences
and a lot of the offensive and defensive systems you played in college
are literally thrown out the window.
"What we all learned at Long Beach was a work ethic. Alan (Knipe)
used to put us through grueling three-hour practices that really prepared
us for this kind of grind."
"This grind" is about as difficult as it gets in sports. The
U.S. team starts to assemble the year after the Olympics with two or three
peak international events, like NORCECA, on the schedule every year. There's
World League play against the top nations that is comparable to soccer's
Euroleague. There's also the World Championships and World Cups that are
the pinnacle events annually leading to the Olympics.
Virtually every national team player also plays professionally in Europe
to make a living.
Hoff has played in Greece, Japan and most recently in Russia for the powerful
Lokomotiv-Belogorie team. Polster has played in Italy, Turkey and last
season in Greece.
Touzinsky, who played at Long Beach from 2001-04 and is a 25-year-old
blocker coming back from major knee surgery, also played in Greece last
season, and McKienzie and Lee, the 25-year-old hitter, in Turkey.
"It has its pluses: world travel, great sport, some fantastic countries,"
Polster said.
"But it's not all peaches and rainbows. You're working and living
away from home."
The competition to make the national team for events like NORCECA, the
World Cup and next year's Olympics is a grind in itself. McCutcheon says
there's a core group of eight players on the team but that there's a lot
of time between now and the Olympics for the look of the national team
to shake out.
Hildebrand and Tarr are youngsters whose future may be in 2012, but the
head coach said they're still in the mix for 2008. The 28-year-old McKienzie
is extremely talented and energetic, but at 6-4 gives away three-to-five
inches to his outside hitting colleagues.
This makes the rare event "at home" like NORCECA extra special.
This is the first year the U.S. has hosted it since 1993. Going into Tuesday's
pool play game against Puerto Rico, the U.S. was 2-0 with wins over Barbados
and Mexico. A win advances them directly into Thursday's semifinals.
The two teams that reach Friday's final automatically qualify for the
12-team World Cup in Japan later this year. The top three finishers at
the World Cup, which is essentially an Olympic preview, will earn automatic
berths to Beijing. If the U.S. does not medal in Japan, they'll have to
earn a bid in 2008 regional events.
"The pressure builds, so we'd like to get (qualifying for the Olympics)
over with," Polster said. "`I'm very confident that we can medal
(at the World Cup).
"The last two years have all been about rebuilding from the last
Olympics (where the U.S. finished fourth). We have an experienced team.
I'm in my sixth year with the national team and I think I'm still the
third youngest guy on the squad. It's a testament to what we can achieve
that guys like Tom and Lloy Ball decided to come back to play."
It's a testament to Long Beach State volleyball that much of the U.S.'s
hopes for an Olympic medal will depend on former 49ers.
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