All the Greatness That Comes With Gold : Volleyball: Caren Kemner, already respected as one of her sport’s best, could be revered if the U.S. women win.

Someone in the front office at Team USA’s headquarters in Mission Valley suggested that Caren Kemner was the Karch Kiraly of the women’s volleyball program.

Terry Liskevych heard this, raised his eyebrows, then scoffed.

“Karch was the best player that’s ever played,” said Liskevych, who will coach the women at the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. “He’s also won two gold medals and he’s won on any surface. I don’t think that’s fair to Karch or to Caren.

“Karch, to me, you mention him in the same breath as Michael Jordan. Caren still has to be on a team that is the best, and I feel this team has every bit of that potential, whether it’s this year or in years to come. Caren has committed to being on the team in 1996 (along with six of the other top 10 athletes on the team). But when they win a gold medal, then I think those comparisons can be made.”

Such are the expectations of greatness. You can’t be the best individually unless you can inspire a team to a championship. Only then do magic titles fit.

Kemner, the best female player in America, will attempt to carry her team to that next level.

So perhaps it is no coincidence that she wears No. 7, first worn by women’s legend Flo Hyman, and the symbol of luck.

Next week in Barcelona, the U.S. tries to roll Kemner’s number and win that elusive gold medal. Next week, Liskevych will know if Kiraly has some company.

Kemner strikes an imposing figure on the volleyball court. She stands 6-foot-1 and weighs 175 pounds. But she is more imposing when she is displaying her enormous skills.

“Caren, without question, is one of the best athletes I’ve ever coached, male or female,” said Liskevych, who coached the Ohio State men to two third-place NCAA finishes. “She’s a veteran, she’s been here over seven years and she has a lot of innate ability. She has great eye-hand coordination, foot speed, she’s very strong, an excellent jumper. She’s a very gifted athlete and a smart volleyball player on the floor. She knows what to do on the floor, and if you couple that with her experience and her innate ability, you’ve got a very good player.”

A very good player bordering on greatness. There are six skills in volleyball: setting, blocking, hitting, serve-receiving, serving and defense.

“If you have a player outstanding in two of those skills, they should be starting,” Liskevych said. “She’s outstanding in four of those skills, as an attacker (hitter), blocker, defender and passer (serve-receive).

“In those four skills, she’s the best player on the team.”

Kemner is a five-time Team USA most valuable player (1986-88, 1990-91). She was the 1991 World Cup MVP, 1991 FIVB MVP, and the top defensive player at the 1991 NORCECA Olympic qualifying tournament.

“As an individual athlete, you have an ability to achieve greatness and have the spotlight immediately thrust on you,” Kemner said. “In a team sport you have to make the difference for 12 people, and it’s hard to be noticed, especially if the team hasn’t done well. I don’t think I’ve changed that much (as a talent) over the last five years, but when the team wins a bronze medal in the 1990 World Championship, suddenly I’m one of the best players in the world.”

It was in that championship that Kemner catapulted herself to the world’s elite.

“She’s always been one of the best in the U.S.,” Liskevych said, “but 1990 proved her to be in the top five in the world.”

In October at the 1991 World Gala, where an all-star team faced world champion Soviet Union, Kemner and U.S. setter Lori Endicott were on the all-star squad.

“Caren was definitely one of the top two players on the floor,” Liskevych said.

The all-stars beat the Soviet team in both meetings, once in Rome and once in Barcelona.

“She’s an incredible player,” said Endicott, whose responsibility is to run the U.S. offense. “She’s an MVP of the world. You look at all the players in the world and there are some incredible players; the difference with Caren is she’s an all-around player, and I think that’s what an MVP is. . . . It’s an honor for me to be able to play with someone like that.”

Kemner, 27, grew up in Quincy, Ill., the youngest of five children. She had three older brothers who were worthy role models--and opponents. She has an older sister, Terri, 37, then Ken, 36, Steven, 34, and Dan, 31.

“I just shadowed my brothers so much, I idolized them,” Kemner said. “I remember my older brother putting me in goal and kicking balls at me, and you had to hold your own because you didn’t want to hear about it over dinner.”

She remembers, after her brothers married and moved on, hitting tennis balls against a wall and pretending she was at Wimbledon. She remembers pitching a softball against that wall.

“It was like I always knew I was supposed to be in sports,” Kemner said.

The sporting life began early and it began at home. Two of the most influential people in her life were her grandfathers. Kemner remembers Bernard Buckley, who died when she was 7, throwing that first pitch to her. And she remembers Alex Kemner, who died right before the 1988 Olympic Games, being her biggest supporter.

“He taught me how to keep my head, to compliment your teammates,” Kemner recalled. “He would always remind me to never get a big head.”

And her brothers taught her all about the ability to compete, no matter what she was doing. She recalls her relationship with the boys she grew up with.

“I remember my friends saying, ‘Hey, you probably shouldn’t beat them, especially in high school,’ ” Kemner said. “It was extremely hard to get a date. It was just that I’m going to win and you can fend for yourself.”

Athletics is not something Kemner takes a flippant attitude toward. She thinks achieving excellence is an attitude.

“It takes a lot of physical gifts, so everything has come a little easier for me, but it requires a lot of good luck and the ability to never underestimate yourself,” Kemner said. “My parents have always told me there’s nothing you can’t do. That’s the way I look at everything.

“The other day I got my butt kicked (15-0) in a racquetball game and it was the first time I ever lost to a woman, but I’m going to get better from it. It’s looking at your life in increments and setting goals, and you can never really lose if you reach those goals.”

Kemner joined the national team eight years ago, two months after Liskevych took over. She had led Quincy Notre Dame High School to three consecutive Illinois state volleyball titles and was a second-team All-American selection after her second--and final--year at Arizona. Volleyball was the last sport she learned. She grew up with tennis and soccer, and she even played softball at Arizona.

She achieved her enormous success by taking baby steps.

“(In athletics), you have to judge yourself every single day of your life,” Kemner said. “You take the small, appropriate steps to get to the big picture. In most events in the Olympic endeavor, it’s a lot of small steps. You go through four years of being unknown, then in July everyone wants to talk to you.

“For me, it started 15 years ago and playing volleyball for the first time. I was never allowed to play in the back row because I was too big. Now on the national team, that’s one of the things I like to do most and I’m one of the best in the world in the back row.”

Her constant self-evaluation finally took its toll. Though Alex and Barbara Kemner didn’t raise a quitter, there came a point when their daughter questioned her future. It turned out to be the turning point in her career.

She left the volleyball program for six months.

“I felt I was burned out. I felt a lot of frustration in my own life,” Kemner said. “For the first time, I stepped away and regained my personality, which I had lost in sports. There are only so many hours in a day that your life can revolve around volleyball and you can be competitive. When I stepped away from it, I regained the things about Caren that make her what she is, the things that people like, my sense of humor, my intelligence. My view of life was so tainted. It re-established my relationship with my family and the things I overlooked for five years.

“During that period, I rediscovered so much about myself that I liked. Then I came back to volleyball and was more confident about myself and my views. That was the turning point for me to become a great athlete.”

She returned to the team in July, 1990 and made the all-tournament team at the 1990 FIVB Super Four tournament. Then came world championship, and the world jumped on her bandwagon.

Brazil, Cuba, China, Japan, Commonwealth of Independent States and the U.S. have a chance to win the gold medal at Barcelona. World Cup champion Cuba is the favorite, but the Americans scored a five-game victory over the Cubans on May 22 in China.

“I think we can win,” Liskevych said. “I think we need a little luck going our way, but without question, we’re one of six teams that have a chance to medal. The team that plays the most consistent in a 10-day period will win.”

The U.S. is in one of two four-team pools that includes Japan (Wednesday), CIS (Thursday) and Spain (Aug. 2). The top three from each pool advance, and the Olympic champion is decided Aug. 7.

Seven. The number Kemner wears. Could it be lucky after all? If the U.S. is playing that day, Endicott promises that Kemner’s presence will be felt.

“It’s rare that Caren has an off night,” Endicott said. “If she is (off), then it’s because other teams are keying on her so much.”

Depth is a strength on the U.S. team, and so is experience. In addition to Kemner, an outside hitter, middle blockers Kim Oden, Tammy Liley and Paula Weishoff, and back-row specialist Liane Sato have Olympic experience.

Seven of the team’s top 10 players have already committed to play in the 1996 Games, as well.

But for now, the small steps are concentrated on Barcelona. First Japan, then CIS, then Spain. Then, hopefully, history, and for Kemner, a place alongside the greats.

“I have to win a gold medal for myself--I’m not worried about making an impression on the sport for myself,” Kemner said. “If I go down as one of the greater players to have played, that would be a great compliment. I would like to be mentioned in the same breath as Karch Kiraly, but it’s not something that’s so feasible: he has two gold medals, he’s raised the level of men’s volleyball, and women right now are striving for their own great players. But I don’t look at Karch as the only great player who has played the game. He has definitely set precedents in the U.S. and nationally; he’s taken the game into the ‘90s and beyond, so if I can set precedents for the women, I would like to do that. What I think I’ve done is set a new athletic level. He’s done for men what I’m trying to do for women.”

And it will take a gold medal for her effort to be complete. Kiraly, after all, has two Olympic golds.

“The only thing I have in common with Karch is volleyball,” Kemner said. “He’s been one of the greatest teachers--from a distance. There was never a woman I could look up to and say I wanted to be like that, so I looked for a man. With three brothers, that was a natural thing to do. I want to pass like Karch, hit like Karch, control the game like Karch.”

To be mentioned in the same breath.