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CLOSE-UP: Kristin Richards
energizes fans.
gonzalesphoto.com |
back in the early 1990s,
when John Dunning was coaching for the University
of the Pacific against Stanford and when women’s
volleyball was played in Burnham Pavilion, the action
could get pretty tight. As he recalls, “A player
once said to me, ‘Is it okay if spectators are
touching us when we’re serving?’”
The coach winces. He doesn’t want any elbows bumping
this fall in Burnham, the intimate, 1,441-seat capacity
gymnasium where the Cardinal women are playing again
while Maples Pavilion is being renovated. At the same
time, the players are “really excited about Burnham,”
says sophomore outside hitter Kristin Richards. “The
atmosphere is so much more intense and close.”
Richards, who was named Freshman of the Year by both
the Pac-10 and Volleyball Magazine, averaged
3.38 kills and 3.03 digs per game last year. She returned
to the court this season as half of one of the top outside-hitting
tandems in the country. Last year Richards combined
with senior Ogonna Nnamani for 1,019 kills—or
about nine per game. And that was before All-American
Nnamani spent eight months training for the Olympics,
along with former Cardinal star Logan Tom, ’03,
on the U.S. National Indoor Team. Nnamani saw a lot
of court time in Athens and recorded 12 kills in the
quarterfinal match against Brazil.
As the 2004 season progressed, the 12th-ranked Cardinal
women (9-2, 2-0 Pac-10), bolstered by four freshmen,
were playing a stronger defensive game than last year.
Pac-10 conference coaches picked them to finish fourth.
“We’ve been working very, very hard on defense,
and last spring it was our whole focus,” Dunning
says. “It takes strength to squat enough to play
defense; you get sore and it takes its toll. But our
team has done a good job and we’re much better
at it.”
Senior Jen Hucke, who has played libero but is now a
right-side hitter, agrees that the “low-all-the-time”
defensive training is paying off. “Plus Burnham
is packed, and we use that [crowd energy] to our advantage.”
As Richards dug for defensive saves, her parquet-crunching
squeaks and squeals earned her a new nickname—Gus,
after the noisy mouse in Disney’s Cinderella.
“When I make errors on the court and do
things a college player shouldn’t be doing, I
tend to scream—and I do look like a mouse,”
the 6-foot-tall player explains. “I’m probably
a little hard on myself.”
That’s understandable for someone who grew up
in a household where volleyballs outnumbered teething
toys. Richards’s earliest memory has to do with
kicking balls around the Utah Valley State College gym
where her mom, Lori, coached volleyball for 24 years.
After trying soccer and basketball, Richards settled
on volleyball in high school and played it year-round,
blocking balls on club teams from December until June,
and scoring for her school team from August through
November. There also were tournaments in Germany, the
Czech Republic, France, Austria and Puerto Rico.
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SAVING THE DAY: Jen Hucke at
Burnham.
Gonzalesphoto.com |
From age 9 to 14, Richards received coaching from her
mom. Then her father, Dave, who played with the U.S.
men’s national team prior to the boycotted 1980
Olympics, took over. Her older sister, Lauren, currently
plays volleyball for Brigham Young University, where
Richards’s parents met and played varsity ball.
Given the alumni connection, it seemed likely that Richards,
the No. 1 recruit in the nation, would head for BYU,
too. But after visiting Stanford, she says, “I
felt you couldn’t top the academics and athletics.
If I’d passed up the opportunity, I think I would
have regretted it the rest of my life.”
Richards has seen former teammates Sara Dukes, ’04,
and Jennifer Harvey, ’04, graduate to play on
professional teams overseas. And during the Olympics,
she and the current squad watched as much televised
beach volleyball as their Stanford practice schedule
allowed, cheering like a ballroom full of Cinderella
mice as former Cardinal Kerri Walsh, ’00,
took home the gold. “I would love playing
beach volleyball, and I wouldn’t mind living in
California for the rest of my life,” Richards
says.
That gets an enthusiastic second from Dunning, who is
starting his fourth year on the Farm. “It’s
actually good for your body because it’s not as
punishing as the hard floor,” he says about the
team’s practice sessions on the two campus sand
courts, near the Arrillaga Family Sports Center. “We
believe in having them play away from coaches, and away
from the indoor game, to keep them enjoying the game.” |
