Ctvrtlik Takes Freedom of Choice Issue Very Seriously : Family History Gives Athlete Perspective, Reason to Work

Bob Ctvrtlik considers his father’s escape from Czechoslovakia in 1948 and he has to smile.

Josef Ctvrtlik and three friends escaped the Soviet government and German guards during the post-war takeover by sneaking aboard a train carrying pregnant women out of Prague in the north to Bratislava in the south, then skiing cross-country for three days in a blizzard to reach Austria. They remained warm by killing the guard dogs that chased them and putting their hands inside them. Later they ate them.

“It’s like a James Bond movie,” he said. “It’s an amazing story. My dad was an amazing man.”

He considers his few minutes aboard the victory dais in Seoul, a gold medal draped around his neck.

And he smiles.

“There’s absolutely nothing like it in the world,” Ctvrtlik said. “No drug, no award, no achievement gives you the feeling when you’re on that stand. It’s weird: You get so many feelings at one time and one of the overwhelming ones, and it might sound corny in this day and age, but you feel so patriotic.”

Perfectly understandable for the outside hitter of the U.S. national men’s volleyball team.

“To think that someone was willing to risk all this just to get to freedom,” Ctvrtlik said. “That’s what we take for granted every day in the United States.”

Josef Ctvrtlik (pronounced stuh-VURT-lick) died nine years ago after a long bout with colon cancer.

“(His death) was incredibly difficult for me,” Ctvrtlik said. “To this day, there are so many things I credit him for instilling in me. I never once thought about stopping or quitting anything after his death because that’s just not how he was. He wanted me to go as far as I could with whatever I loved to do.”

It is a story steeped in hard work, perseverance and a little luck. And you can’t help but think Bob Ctvrtlik inherited some of this father’s fortitude.

His best friend on the team is Doug Partie, whose career has paralleled Ctvrtlik’s.

“I don’t think Bob feels he has to live up to (his father’s legacy), but instinctively, inside of himself, that’s what he wants to do,” Partie said. “I know he wants to succeed. I know it’s very important for him to succeed.

U.S. Coach Fred Sturm and his team are the benefactors of that.

“He’s very strong in an intangible sense,” Sturm said. “He has some personality characteristics that allow him to compete at the highest international level. He’s a fighter, a guy who’s always in there. Nothing gets in his way.

“He’s a great leader by example. He works hard, he’s real focused--a real competitor. He’s a great player.

“Bob does not make unforced errors. He knows what to do with the ball. His experience is an invaluable quality for the team.”

Unlike most other players on the national team, Ctvrtlik was a late comer. His ambition through high school was to play basketball and was even recruited by some small colleges. But with his father ill, he gave it up and attended Long Beach City College to remain close to home.

Some friends who were on the volleyball team knew he was an athlete and asked him to try out. At his first practice, he took an elbow in the face and split his chin open, requiring stitches.

“I was as far from a volleyball player as anyone could be,” he said.

The coach was also the football line coach, Gary Jacobsen.

“He was nowhere close to being a top-notch volleyball coach, but he taught me the fundamentals, and to this day I look back to the things I learned there,” Ctvrtlik said.

Long Beach City won the community college state title and Ctvrtlik was the tournament MVP.

Interested in business, he went to Cal State Long Beach and, he says, “started getting good in a hurry.”

He became an All-American and led the 49ers to the NCAA semifinals. Now, his appetite was really whet.

“I’ve always respected the people who, when they achieve something, try to go to the next level,” Ctvrtlik said.

Finding a university with a strong business program and an outstanding volleyball program was difficult, but Pepperdine, with Coach Marv Dunphy, was a perfect fit.

Ctvrtlik transferred but had to sit out a season, the most pivotal of his career. Dunphy took Ctvrtlik under his wing. He trained year-round, lifted like a fiend, put about 15 pounds on his 6-foot-5 frame “and really learned how to play volleyball.”

Over the summer, Ctvrtlik went to the Olympics--as a security guard, courtside, to keep the autograph hounds away.

“By that time I was a full volleyball fanatic,” he said. “(But) it never occurred to me that I could be out there.

Pepperdine went undefeated en route to its 1985 NCAA championship and Ctvrtlik, the team captain, was the final four MVP. Then Dunphy was named Olympic coach, and Ctvrtlik followed.

At 25, he was the youngest starter at the 1988 Olympics.

“You look at his volleyball career,” Sturm says, “and he’s won championships at every level he’s played--the World Championships, the Games, the World Cup--he knows what it takes to do the job.”

It’s the stuff movies are made of.

“There’s no one who has been more blessed in their life,” Ctvrtlik said. “I don’t try to kid anyone. I go to Pepperdine and Marv Dunphy becomes the Olympic coach.

“My whole career has been like that. It’s been kind of scary.”

He smiles.