Hofmans Bounces Back From Season of Discontent

A year after Heather Hofmans’ volleyball team came just a few points from returning to the NCAA’s Final Four, she was suffering through a 2-29 season with her new team.

Times like those call for serious soul-searching.

“When it was about halfway through the year, I was thinking ‘What am I doing here?’ ” said Hofmans, who transferred from Long Beach State to Cal State Northridge between her sophomore and junior years.

While it may have seemed like a mistake last year, when Northridge was enduring the worst season in its history, Hofmans now can smile and breathe a sigh of relief.

Northridge, with Hofmans guiding the way at setter, has fashioned a remarkable turnaround. The Matadors (22-10) were undefeated in their first Big Sky Conference campaign and qualified for the NCAA tournament, which they open tonight against Kansas State (25-8) in Manhattan, Kan.

“It’s sort of overwhelming,” Hofmans said.

“I had hoped and prayed that we’d get this far and make the tournament and stuff, but deep down, I never really thought it would come true.”

Hofmans, a senior, helped answer her own prayers. She is averaging 12.17 assists and was a second-team All-Big Sky pick.

In two seasons at Northridge, Hofmans already has moved to second place on the all-time assist list, with 2,078.

“She is wonderful,” Coach Lian Lu said, “not just for her volleyball, but for her leadership.”

Leadership is an area in which Hofmans admits she has come a long way in the past year. When she first got to Northridge , she didn’t know her teammates’ personalities well, and had trouble asserting herself.

“I was kind of shy,” she said. “I didn’t really know what to do. I was hoping everything would fall into place and it never did. Then finally I figured out that the only way the team was going to turn around was I had to at least start being some kind of a leader.”

It was a big decision for someone who a few years earlier was so shy and tentative that she was glad she never got on the court during Long Beach’s run to the national championship.

Hofmans went to Long Beach from St. Joseph High in Bellflower. She didn’t grow up dreaming of playing college volleyball. Even in high school, she never thought about it.

“I was a little nerd at an all-girls Catholic school,” she said.

But a club team Hofmans played on was run by Long Beach Coach Brian Gimmillaro, and she wound up joining the 49ers as a walk-on.

During her freshman season in 1993, she played sparingly as Long Beach won the national championship.

During her sophomore year, Hofmans became a starter and the 49ers made it to the regional final, losing to Ohio State in a five-game match.

Two years, two great seasons. Couldn’t ask for much more than that.

But what happened off the court soured Hofmans on Long Beach.

Volleyball players at Long Beach are semi-celebrities, Hofmans said.

They are recognized in class and around campus. Most volleyball players who yearn to receive the same attention as athletes in major sports would welcome such popularity. Not Hofmans.

“I just wanted to live a normal life, just play volleyball and go to school,” she said. “I didn’t want to be in all that . . . fame.

“You couldn’t go to McDonald’s and have a hamburger without worrying about someone telling the coach that they saw you having a hamburger.”

There was also pressure from the volleyball community and the alumni to maintain the level of play that had brought the 49ers two national championships since 1989.

“The press, the public, the city, they have such expectations,” Hofmans said. “You have to be good. You have to go to the Final Four.”

In addition, the 49ers had Lori Price, a touted recruit, in line to be the setter.

So Hofmans left, looking for someplace distant enough so she could feel that she was away, but close enough so she could return home to do her laundry.

Northridge fit that profile, and also attracted Hofmans because Lu came highly recommended as a coach for setters.

“I came here and started over,” Hofmans said, happy with the relative anonymity enjoyed by Northridge volleyball players.

“It hasn’t always been pretty, but it was all worth it.”