The Right Stuff : Diminutive Suarez Stands Tall as a Walk-On at CS Northridge

Anna Suarez stood motionless as she listened to a lesson she had heard a hundred times before.

“Here,” the coach said, pointing at Suarez, “is a 5-foot, 8-inch blocker who jumps pretty good.

“And over here is a 5-10, 5-11 blocker who jumps very good.”

Now, he asked, who should you try to spike over?

Suarez knew what answer the coach wanted to hear. In fact, she was the answer.

The hitter took a few steps back, then ran in for a spike. Suarez jumped to block it, but the shot whizzed by her hand and down the sideline. The hitter backed up again and ran in for another spike. She went up. Suarez soared higher. The shot bounced off Suarez’s hands and back in the hitter’s face.

By the end of the 10-minute drill, Suarez had blocked considerably more balls then she missed.

And by the end of the two-hour practice, Suarez had shown that hitting the ball at her was not a particularly good idea under any circumstances, regardless of her lack of height.

It has taken only two weeks of practice for the freshman from Chaminade High to prove she can play for Cal State Northridge, a team that last year won the Division II national championship.

A diamond of a recruit? Hardly. Suarez is a walk-on who had to ask Coach Walt Ker for a tryout.

“The 5-7, 5-8 size was something that made you say, ‘Hey, there isn’t that much potential there,’ ” Ker said. “I think most coaches have that mentality and that’s where we started from.”

Suarez quickly changed Ker’s line of thinking. Although adjusting to the taller blockers has been a difficult transition, Suarez has impressed the CSUN coaching staff with her defensive skills and athletic ability.

“I didn’t know who Walt had recruited so I came in with a clean slate. I didn’t have a bias like, ‘Oh, she’s a walk-on,’ ” assistant Coach Chuck English said. “She came in and we looked at her and right away thought she would make the team.”

As a high school senior, Suarez had been the best player at Chaminade, which traditionally has strong teams. “She was the catalyst for everything we did,” Chaminade Coach Mike Lynn said. “She was our best defensive player, our best blocker and our strongest outside hitter. When Anna was on, we felt we could beat anybody.”

Although she was considered one of the Valley’s top players, Suarez was ignored by local colleges.

“I was disappointed but not really surprised,” Suarez said. “I wish I would have been offered a scholarship somewhere but it just didn’t happen.”

George Mason University, the University of Denver and the University of Alaska offered partial financial aid, but Suarez decided that staying close to home and trying out for the volleyball team at CSUN or Pierce was best.

Much of her summer was spent debating between the two before Suarez received some advice from her older brother, Pablo.

Pablo, a pitcher on the Northridge baseball team two years ago, transferred to College of the Canyons before last season after a falling out with Terry Craven, then the CSUN baseball coach.

“He’s the one who told me to go to CSUN,” Suarez said of her brother. “He said that I would like it a lot better, that it was more of a college atmosphere.”

But for a volleyball player, it also was an extremely competitive situation. The Lady Matadors had 18 players--including nine with experience as starters--try out for the squad this season. Ker said before practice began that he would keep 12 players and redshirt three or four more.

“I was worried about trying out. I was worried about how good everybody would be and if my position would be open,” Suarez said. “But Walt told me I’d be in the program somehow. He just called me over and said, ‘To relieve you of some pressure, I just want to tell you that you are going to be a part of the program.’

“I was really relieved,” Suarez said.

Making the CSUN team as a non-scholarship player actually isn’t that unusual. Four starters from last season’s championship team were walk-ons their first season, including Angela Brinton, the Division II Player of the Year.

“One of the difficult things for us is we have a very limited amount of money to recruit with,” Ker said. “The largest scholarship that anyone in my program gets is $1,500 per year. That’s less than a third of a full-ride and not all my players get that.

“There have been a lot of players that we’ve encouraged to come to school here but didn’t give financial aid to.”

Most of the other walk-ons, including Brinton, were encouraged by Ker to try out. Suarez was not.

“I was stupid,” Ker said. “I’m willing to admit I made a mistake.”

And now that Ker has seen what Suarez can do, he’s happy that every other coach on the West Coast was oblivious to her talent as well.