Post by bigfan on Apr 21, 2006 14:36:26 GMT -5
Hildebrand is assists leader
By Frank Burlison
Despite still favoring basketball over volleyball, LBSU senior setter Tyler Hildebrand has become one of the top players inthe nation. the leader of a team in the MPSF playoffs, and perhaps the greatest setter in 49er history.
Some five years ago, as a junior at Red Mountain High in Mesa, Ariz., Tyler Hildebrand was sitting in a math class when the teacher suggested he try out for the school's volleyball team.
After some coaxing and a hall pass to go meet with the coach, Jayne Randu, Hildebrand found himself on the path that would make him perhaps the finest setter in college volleyball and a candidate for the United States' 2008 Olympic team.
Not bad for a guy who, up until joining his high school's team, had a volleyball resume that consisted of "hitting the ball some on the beach or playing it at family picnics," the Long Beach State senior setter said the other day, while downing a Del Taco Macho-sized Coke minutes before practice in the Walter Pyramid.
"I really wasn't into the sport at first but then it began to be fun. But I still considered myself a basketball player."
And, despite being on the verge of wrapping up his career as a 49er as a three-time All-America, one aspect of his perspective hasn't changed.
"As a sport, I still like basketball better (than volleyball)," he said, smiling.
Maybe he'd rather knock in jump shots and dunk over opponents on a basketball court.
But it's his ability to distribute volleyballs to outside hitters and middle blockers in the same fashion that Steve Nash gets basketballs to teammates or Peyton Manning fires footballs to wide receivers that has propelled him to his status as one of the best athletes in college sports.
And it's also one of the reasons the 49ers will take a four-match winning streak and 21-9 record into a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament quarterfinal with the Brigham Young University Cougars into the Walter Pyramid Saturday evening.
Hildebrand, a psychology major and two-time All-MPSF academic team selection, is third in the nation in assists (1,534 for a 13.58 per game average) and the school's all-time leader with 6,514.
What's even more impressive about Hildebrand's totals, his LBSU coach believes, is that they've come in the "rally scoring" era (game winners at 30 points, with at-least a two-point edge, and points scored on each kill or hitting error) that came into play in 2001, vs. the "side-out" scoring system (game winners at 15 points, with at least a two-point edge, and points scored only by the serving team) it replaced.
"The average game now," Alan Knipe said Thursday, "is usually only about two-thirds as long as it was before."
But Hildebrand doesn't appear to let any number faze him other than those that fall under the "W" and "L" columns in the MPSF standings.
"As a setter, the best barometer of success, to me, is playing as hard and doing the best you can," he said. "That's all I can expect out of myself.
"We've lost a lot of close matches and I think we should have won some of those. And I'd like to have made better (setting) decisions but, at the time, I thought I was making the right ones."
The dynamics of this season have been different than his first three as a 49er in one very large respect, Hildebrand believes.
"We're playing a different style of volleyball now," he said. "We have always been, in my opinion, the best passing team in the country. This year we are not. But this year we are much better, defensively. We are getting a ton more digs.
"And, for a setter, that's a big difference. The first three years I pretty much just stood at the net and set the ball wherever I wanted it to go. This year, I'm not at the net all the time anymore. I'm moving around, blocking and digging balls, too."
Knipe got his first up-close look at Hildebrand when he showed up at Long Beach State to participate in the USA Youth National trials the summer before his senior year.
"The thing that struck me about him was his ability to set well in a very fast-paced style," Knipe said. "He had really soft hands and set a very hittable ball.
"And you could see the passion he had as a competitor. We can teach players a lot of parts of the game but we can't teach them to love the game or the love of competition."
His basketball comments aside, the 6-foot-5 Hildebrand's passion for volleyball must be of the full-tilt variety, or why would he continue to put his knees through such a grind each time he steps onto a court?
He's got nasty scars on both knees, the first coming as the result of surgery on the left one when he was in sixth grade.
The most recent surgery took place last summer on the right knee, when his patella was dislocated during a match against Belgium in the World University Games in Turkey.
"I landed on a guy's foot as I made an effort to get off the net," he said. "This is going to sound weird, but I knew it (that the knee cap had been dislodged) right away."
It's not weird when you learn more about Hildebrand's knees.
"I've only dislocated this one twice," he said, rubbing his right knee. "But it's happened to the left one about 50 times."
He also offered a some instant diagnosis for the Team USA medical staff that was attending to him in Turkey.
"I told them I'd chipped a bone (in the knee)," he said, "but they said it didn't look like it. They X-rayed it and, sure enough, five pieces of bone had shattered. They explained it was almost like an explosion of bone on bone."
The news meant surgery to clean out the loose bone and ensuing rehabilitation to prep himself for his senior season.
"But I wasn't really too worried because I knew it wasn't a really difficult procedure," he said, matter-of-factly. "I knew the rehab would be real painful but I knew it wouldn't be like a reconstructive surgery, when you have to be off the leg for about six weeks."
Hildebrand doesn't mind obstacles.
After seeing his left leg put into casts three times between the sixth and seventh grades, Hildebrand and his parents, Tony and Cheryl, were told that it might be best if he gave up competitive sports.
"He (the orthopedic surgeon) told me if I didn't," Hildebrand said, "I might need knee replacement surgery by the time I was 25."
Hildebrand smiled.
"What was I going to do, stop playing sports so that I could 'walk better' when I was 50?" he said.
"I said I'd rather 'play now and get a wheelchair then."'
Hildebrand is aware that the piper, so to speak, is going to have to be paid eventually when it comes to his knees.
"There is very little cartilage left in the knees, so it's basically bone on bone," he said. "But I'm sure there will be some kind of medical advancements by then. They are doing a lot of research on cartilage regrowth and, hopefully, something will come through."
He gives a great deal of credit to Long Beach State's head athletic trainer, Dan Bailey, for his ability to recover quickly enough from last summer's surgery to go full-speed ahead into the season and, to keep his knees as relatively pain-free as possible.
Bailey calls Hildebrand "one of the most competitive and toughest athletes I've ever worked with he does everything you ask of him (in the rehab process)."
And Hildebrand says he's never worked with anyone who has done more to get him (especially his knees) into playing shape.
"Dan is awesome," he said. "He knows more about knees than anyone I've dealt with. I've had three orthopedic surgeons and they had no idea. It was something they read in books back at medical school.
"But Dan taught me how to rehab better than ever. He makes you do the kind of things you don't think you're capable of doing. He's not like the typical physical therapists that just read and learn their stuff from books. Dan has been there, done that because he's seen a million athletes go through here. He knows what your limits are and he pushes you to get to them."
By Frank Burlison
Despite still favoring basketball over volleyball, LBSU senior setter Tyler Hildebrand has become one of the top players inthe nation. the leader of a team in the MPSF playoffs, and perhaps the greatest setter in 49er history.
Some five years ago, as a junior at Red Mountain High in Mesa, Ariz., Tyler Hildebrand was sitting in a math class when the teacher suggested he try out for the school's volleyball team.
After some coaxing and a hall pass to go meet with the coach, Jayne Randu, Hildebrand found himself on the path that would make him perhaps the finest setter in college volleyball and a candidate for the United States' 2008 Olympic team.
Not bad for a guy who, up until joining his high school's team, had a volleyball resume that consisted of "hitting the ball some on the beach or playing it at family picnics," the Long Beach State senior setter said the other day, while downing a Del Taco Macho-sized Coke minutes before practice in the Walter Pyramid.
"I really wasn't into the sport at first but then it began to be fun. But I still considered myself a basketball player."
And, despite being on the verge of wrapping up his career as a 49er as a three-time All-America, one aspect of his perspective hasn't changed.
"As a sport, I still like basketball better (than volleyball)," he said, smiling.
Maybe he'd rather knock in jump shots and dunk over opponents on a basketball court.
But it's his ability to distribute volleyballs to outside hitters and middle blockers in the same fashion that Steve Nash gets basketballs to teammates or Peyton Manning fires footballs to wide receivers that has propelled him to his status as one of the best athletes in college sports.
And it's also one of the reasons the 49ers will take a four-match winning streak and 21-9 record into a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament quarterfinal with the Brigham Young University Cougars into the Walter Pyramid Saturday evening.
Hildebrand, a psychology major and two-time All-MPSF academic team selection, is third in the nation in assists (1,534 for a 13.58 per game average) and the school's all-time leader with 6,514.
What's even more impressive about Hildebrand's totals, his LBSU coach believes, is that they've come in the "rally scoring" era (game winners at 30 points, with at-least a two-point edge, and points scored on each kill or hitting error) that came into play in 2001, vs. the "side-out" scoring system (game winners at 15 points, with at least a two-point edge, and points scored only by the serving team) it replaced.
"The average game now," Alan Knipe said Thursday, "is usually only about two-thirds as long as it was before."
But Hildebrand doesn't appear to let any number faze him other than those that fall under the "W" and "L" columns in the MPSF standings.
"As a setter, the best barometer of success, to me, is playing as hard and doing the best you can," he said. "That's all I can expect out of myself.
"We've lost a lot of close matches and I think we should have won some of those. And I'd like to have made better (setting) decisions but, at the time, I thought I was making the right ones."
The dynamics of this season have been different than his first three as a 49er in one very large respect, Hildebrand believes.
"We're playing a different style of volleyball now," he said. "We have always been, in my opinion, the best passing team in the country. This year we are not. But this year we are much better, defensively. We are getting a ton more digs.
"And, for a setter, that's a big difference. The first three years I pretty much just stood at the net and set the ball wherever I wanted it to go. This year, I'm not at the net all the time anymore. I'm moving around, blocking and digging balls, too."
Knipe got his first up-close look at Hildebrand when he showed up at Long Beach State to participate in the USA Youth National trials the summer before his senior year.
"The thing that struck me about him was his ability to set well in a very fast-paced style," Knipe said. "He had really soft hands and set a very hittable ball.
"And you could see the passion he had as a competitor. We can teach players a lot of parts of the game but we can't teach them to love the game or the love of competition."
His basketball comments aside, the 6-foot-5 Hildebrand's passion for volleyball must be of the full-tilt variety, or why would he continue to put his knees through such a grind each time he steps onto a court?
He's got nasty scars on both knees, the first coming as the result of surgery on the left one when he was in sixth grade.
The most recent surgery took place last summer on the right knee, when his patella was dislocated during a match against Belgium in the World University Games in Turkey.
"I landed on a guy's foot as I made an effort to get off the net," he said. "This is going to sound weird, but I knew it (that the knee cap had been dislodged) right away."
It's not weird when you learn more about Hildebrand's knees.
"I've only dislocated this one twice," he said, rubbing his right knee. "But it's happened to the left one about 50 times."
He also offered a some instant diagnosis for the Team USA medical staff that was attending to him in Turkey.
"I told them I'd chipped a bone (in the knee)," he said, "but they said it didn't look like it. They X-rayed it and, sure enough, five pieces of bone had shattered. They explained it was almost like an explosion of bone on bone."
The news meant surgery to clean out the loose bone and ensuing rehabilitation to prep himself for his senior season.
"But I wasn't really too worried because I knew it wasn't a really difficult procedure," he said, matter-of-factly. "I knew the rehab would be real painful but I knew it wouldn't be like a reconstructive surgery, when you have to be off the leg for about six weeks."
Hildebrand doesn't mind obstacles.
After seeing his left leg put into casts three times between the sixth and seventh grades, Hildebrand and his parents, Tony and Cheryl, were told that it might be best if he gave up competitive sports.
"He (the orthopedic surgeon) told me if I didn't," Hildebrand said, "I might need knee replacement surgery by the time I was 25."
Hildebrand smiled.
"What was I going to do, stop playing sports so that I could 'walk better' when I was 50?" he said.
"I said I'd rather 'play now and get a wheelchair then."'
Hildebrand is aware that the piper, so to speak, is going to have to be paid eventually when it comes to his knees.
"There is very little cartilage left in the knees, so it's basically bone on bone," he said. "But I'm sure there will be some kind of medical advancements by then. They are doing a lot of research on cartilage regrowth and, hopefully, something will come through."
He gives a great deal of credit to Long Beach State's head athletic trainer, Dan Bailey, for his ability to recover quickly enough from last summer's surgery to go full-speed ahead into the season and, to keep his knees as relatively pain-free as possible.
Bailey calls Hildebrand "one of the most competitive and toughest athletes I've ever worked with he does everything you ask of him (in the rehab process)."
And Hildebrand says he's never worked with anyone who has done more to get him (especially his knees) into playing shape.
"Dan is awesome," he said. "He knows more about knees than anyone I've dealt with. I've had three orthopedic surgeons and they had no idea. It was something they read in books back at medical school.
"But Dan taught me how to rehab better than ever. He makes you do the kind of things you don't think you're capable of doing. He's not like the typical physical therapists that just read and learn their stuff from books. Dan has been there, done that because he's seen a million athletes go through here. He knows what your limits are and he pushes you to get to them."
