[ DIVISION II VOLLEYBALL ]
KEN IGE / KIGE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Hawaii Pacific's Vera Oliveira was a Pacific West Conference first-team setter as a freshman.
HPU's Oliveira playing
tough for Tita Ahuna
When Hawaii Pacific All-American Susy Garbelotti called Vera Oliveira in Brazil to recruit her, she told her about everything except the most important things.
She was sure to mention the beaches and the international flavor of the school. She told her what coach Tita Ahuna was like, but did not tell her that she would be playing for perhaps the state's most accomplished setter and replacing the school's best player, three-time first-team All-American Nia Tuitele.
But Oliveira held a few important things from Garbelotti and Ahuna as well -- that she would be doing it on one leg.
Oliveira tore the ACL in her left knee two years before joining the Sea Warriors, taking a year and a half away from the game to rehabilitate. Ahuna knew about the injury but believed her new setter -- who was on Brazil's national team in high school -- was fully recovered when she wasn't. A test showed that the strength in her knee was only at 30 percent and stayed that way through most of the season.
But Ahuna, who knows a little something about toughing it out, threw Oliveira into the lineup anyway. All the Brazilian did was step out from under Tuitele's shadow by earning a spot on the Pacific West Conference's first team without missing a single game as a freshman -- something even Tuitele was unable to accomplish.
"That's just what you call guts and a lot of heart," Ahuna said. "She's tough."
Oliveira doesn't consider playing hurt about "guts and heart." She considers it playing because she can. On the day she landed wrong and blew out her knee, Oliveira was playing with a broken thumb. Behind the tears of pain was the fear that she may never play volleyball again or realize her dream of studying abroad.
The tragedy took volleyball away from the volleyball player, but replaced it with a love for physical therapy. Oliveira took an active part in her recovery, calling the shots and taking the time to do it right. Whether it worked is a matter of debate, since she still goes to physical therapy three times a week for an injury she suffered four years ago, but it did replace her passion for volleyball.
Oliveira was close to signing with Texas-El Paso when Garbelotti called about HPU. She jumped on the NCAA Div. II school because it doesn't require students to take the SAT that most schools -- like UTEP -- require for admission. Unless they administered the test in Portuguese, Oliveira believed she had no chance.
She would also have little chance to study the physical therapy that she had grown to enjoy, as HPU only offers it at a sister school in Wisconsin. She is studying nursing now.
It didn't take long for Oliveira to learn about the two-time national champion she was replacing. Ahuna reassembled her most recent national champion team to test her new contingent. Oliveira lined up against Tuitele, who was on a break from working out with the U.S. national team. It was the past against the present, and the future won.
"She's great. I want to learn from her but she is pretty busy with other things. When I came here we played the 2000 national champions and she just amazed me. I hope people compare me to her for the good things I do."
Oliveira has since been just as amazed by Ahuna. As she did with Tuitele, who played her entire career with a shoulder she had to ice as much as Oliveira ices her knee, Ahuna challenges Oliveira every day.
"She always tells me to do something different," Oliveira said. "If I do one thing well, she wants me to do the other thing. I think she wants me to learn that I have to be unpredictable."
And being unpredictable is one of Oliveira's strengths. She dishes out assists at a Tuitelian pace but mixes in the hitting percentage of an outside hitter. Once this year, she had the strange mix of 60 assists and 20 kills in the same match. She says that is all part of learning with Ahuna, doing something that is common in Brazil but rare on this side of the world.
"Setters from Hawaii can hit, too," Ahuna said when asked if Oliveira's love for the kill was a Brazilian thing. "I recruited her to be a setter, but if I were to put her at outside hitter I know she could do the job there, too. Not many setters can do that."
In any event, Oliveira will not be asked to do anything but set the ball to her many weapons, dishing out assists all the way to what the team hopes will be a chance at another national title.
Going into tonight's game against Chaminade at St. Andrew's Priory, her Sea Warriors are resting a perfect record on a wrecked knee.
"This is my baby," Oliveira said while gently tapping her scarred left knee. "I have to take care of my baby."
