Nomads of the net

[Papa_Bull]

Nomads of the net  

Volleyball players have to be willing to move around - a lot

By SCOTT SEYMOUR

Herald-Tribune sports editor

To live as a professional volleyball player is to live as a nomad.

One year you're playing in the Azores off the coast of Portugal, the next you're in Denmark. Or you start the season on Cyprus and finish it in Indonesia.

And then there's the off-season.

So far this summer, Chelly Collier has gone from Ottawa to Florida to Grande Prairie. Next week, she'll cross the continent again.

Collier, a Brazilian-born pro who's teaching at the Impact Volleyball Camp this week at I.V Macklin school, will return to her college alma mater, the University of South Florida, to attend a special alumni ceremony in which her No. 10 jersey will be retired.

It will be the final honour bestowed upon Collier, who last November was named the NCAA's Conference USA Volleyball Player of the Decade.

Grande Prairie to Tampa means her travel budget will take another hit, but it's too big of an honour to not accept in person.

"I'm pretty pumped about it, but it does feel like I've been travelling the whole summer," said Collier, a star outside hitter with the USF Lady Bulls from 1998-2002. "I was up in Ottawa for a couple of months and then I went down to Florida at the end of June and I was doing volleyball camps there and then I came up here."

Collier first came to North America as a Grade 11 exchange student in a small town in Nebraska. While playing club and high school volleyball there, she quickly caught the eyes of NCAA scouts and landed a scholarship to South Florida. After that, she turned pro.

Her parents moved to Ottawa six years ago, but her nomadic life of the past 10 years or so has thrown a snag in her efforts to become a Canadian.

Collier, 25, has landed immigrant status, but because she hasn't lived in Canada very much in the past few years, it's hampering the citizenship process.

"I have all the rights of a Canadian citizen, but I can't vote or play for the national team," she said.

"We have a lawyer on the case and the national team is trying to help me."

Collier has no plans to change her career or lifestyle just yet, though. She will play in Avila, Spain this fall.

"I've been teaching a lot this summer, because I eventually want to coach when I finish playing," said Collier.

"I'm really trying to keep all of my connections (in Florida) and try to make new connections here."

Dan Kurylo is the local connection here. But connecting the dots gets complicated.

A former GPRC Wolf and University of Calgary Dino in the 1990s, Kurylo's pro career started about three years ago when, after he graduated from U of C with a degree in business, he was signed by a team in Indonesia.

After a season there, he didn't get any pro offers, but instead got an invite from Ryan Pomeroy, another GP product who was playing pro on the Azores off of Portugal, to come and train with the club team.

A few months later, Kurylo signed on with a team in Denmark, where he played a full season last year and plans to play this season.

But it was while Pomeroy and Kurylo were in the Azores that they got the idea of setting up a volleyball school in Grande Prairie, featuring instruction from professionals and national teamers.

"We were chillin' by the ocean and hanging out and we thought, 'Well, why don't we get all of our buddies together who play pro and you don't see all year, meet in the summer, tell each other stories and teach kids about volleyball?" said Kurylo, 27.

From that, Impact Volleyball Camp was started last year. Kurylo and a rotating group of instructors have taken it across the Peace Country and the Prince George area over the last couple of summers and will keep in Grande Prairie next week for a special elite camp for high school players.

Last season in Indonesia, where Collier was the league's MVP, she met Marcelo Barreto, a fellow Brazilian who played with Pomeroy and Kurylo in the Azores.

Barreto had been invited to teach at the Impact Camp this summer and when he told Collier of it, she e-mailed Kurylo right away. She already knew of the camp through Lisa Reynolds, another of its instructors and current Spanish League pro who Collier met while both trained with Canada's national team.

Collier's glittering volleyball resume made her an easy hire for Kurylo, not to mention a bit of a coup for a school only in its second year of operation.

"When she told me who she was and where she played, I looked at her stats from Florida and said 'Oh, yeah, you're in,'" Kurylo said. "I asked Marcelo how she played and he said 'She's awesome.'"

This week Collier, Kurylo and Barreto joined Nathan Bennett, an Athabasca resident and former U of Alberta star now playing pro in Belgium and Murray Laidlaw, a Prince George native who played in Sweden last year, as the instructors.

TEACHING IN HIS BLOOD

Barreto, 22, had never instructed at any level before but is loving his crash-course in teaching this summer.

"My dad and mom were both phys ed teachers, so it's probably in my blood to teach," said Barreto, who played in Maia, Portugal last year and will hook up with a team in Amsterdam, Holland this season.

"It's fun, especially with these younger kids. They have a lot of energy and they're really up to everything. If you ask them to do something, they just go and do it. The older they get, the harder it is, though."

Collier just loves the idea of continuing her volleyball career in any way, shape or form. She says most of her Florida teammates walked away from the sport after graduation.

"I feel so lucky I can do this for a living and still play," said Collier.

"I love teaching. I think it's so nice to give back to the sport. It's a totally different feeling than when you're playing - just because you're a great player doesn't mean you're a great coach and that's what I like about it. It's very challenging and very rewarding."

And in the case of the young players she's taught here, it's eye-opening.

"I can only compare female players because I've only taught girls, but the girls are way more athletic here than they are in the U.S. It's just a shame they don't get to play as much," she said. "Down in Florida, we had 400 kids in one camp. But here, the level of the 30 kids is a lot better than the level of those 400 kids down there."

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