Actions of Hager Speak Volumes : Reserved Outside Hitter From Germany Makes Roaring Contribution to CSUN Volleyball Team

Axel Hager is searching his memory for an example of the “crazy” behavior of his Cal State Northridge volleyball teammates. It does not take him long.

“Do you know what the Matamaniacs are?” Hager asks, warming to the subject. “They are wearing crazy clothes (and) dancing around embarrassing people. My first week in America and they dress me up like that. It is hard. You are here one week and you have to act like an idiot?”

Fortunately, Hager, a junior from Hamburg, Germany, has been in full control of his faculties on the court.

He has played a key role on a squad that is hoping to regain its midseason form, beginning tonight against UC Santa Barbara in the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. tournament at UC Irvine’s Bren Center.

The addition of Hager to the front line of All-American Coley Kyman and three-year starter Ken Lynch has given the Matadors a third top-flight attacker.

“With those three guys in the lineup at the same time, we’re tough,” Northridge Coach John Price said. “And Axel is such a good passer he makes everyone around him better.”

Hager’s passing ability--helping to return a serve or kill attempt with a dig--is rare for a player of his 6-foot-7 stature. He is ranked third in the WIVA and 15th nationally in digs, and with 233 is seven shy of breaking Neil Coffman’s 1989 single-season school record.

The only jump server on the team, Hager is also the team leader in aces with 40. In the most recent NCAA statistics, he is ranked seventh.

Hager, an outside hitter, still needs to become more consistent on the attack, according to Price, but his kill average of 4.8 a game is not far behind those of Lynch (5.9) and Kyman (5.6).

Hager quickly has adjusted to the defense-oriented U.S. game. CSUN coaches taught him how to position himself for serves and kill attempts. They also taught him to jump serve and expanded his attacking options.

Hager, 23, took up volleyball when he was 13. At 16, he earned a berth on the West German junior national team. After three years, he joined a club team, Hamburger SV. As one of the youngest and most inexperienced players, it took him two seasons to earn playing time.

He earned several starts in his third season, then played poorly in one match and the coach never played him again. “I lost my confidence,” Hager said. “I thought I was the worst player in the world. It was a bad experience--what you would call a crisis.”

Hager’s choices were limited.

“If John Price had not recruited me,” Hager said, “I wouldn’t be playing volleyball any more. I would only study.”

Hager had heard about Price and the Northridge program through contacts he made playing beach volleyball while on vacation in Southern California last May. A tape he sent of one of his matches before he was benched by the Hamburger SV coach finally convinced Price that Hager could help his team.

“I knew he was a player,” Price said. “My attitude was that I would take any of the guys on the tape. We were in desperate need of a left-side guy, so we pursued Axel as hard as we could.”

A snafu with the paperwork delayed Hager’s enrollment until the spring semester. Price counseled patience, and when Hager finally landed in Los Angeles a few days after Christmas, he hit the ground running.

That is because Kyman was his host. The football quarterback-volleyball star is also the unofficial social chairman of Northridge athletics--an unabashedly “outspoken, friendly guy. I just took him around,” Kyman said.

Hager was overwhelmed.

“I appreciate Coley,” he said. “At first, I lived with him and he took me to all the parties and introduced me around. Ken (Lynch) and Coley helped me to an easy start. I’ve had no problems meeting a lot of people.”

The warm reception allayed Hager’s fears about where he would live, whom he would live with and how he would make friends.

Once school and practice began he had new challenges. His English is advanced, but occasionally he cannot find the right English word for what he easily could say in German.

As for volleyball, Hager’s impact was immediately apparent and his fear of riding the bench was put to rest.

As Kyman predicted, the Matador players accepted Hager and he fit in almost perfectly.

The only sticking point was that his stoicism contrasted sharply with his teammates’ free-spirited ways.

Hager disapproved, for example, of a team tradition in which the upperclassmen shave the heads of freshmen.

“It’s embarrassing for them,” Hager said of the freshmen. “It’s against their honor.”

From Hager’s perspective, the CSUN volleyball players often lose their minds, if not their honor.

“On the (road) they stick together and do a lot of stupid things,” Hager said. “Sometimes I do it with them. Sometimes I don’t. That’s why we’re good. We accept each other.

“I try not to be American. I want to stay German. . . . I won’t get crazy like them. I am more silent.”