Freshman Knop Carves Own Path
11/19/2014 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
By Brad Rudner
Before you read this story, go back and watch any match the University of Michigan volleyball team has played this year against a Big Ten opponent.
Look in the front row. Do you see the girl wearing the No. 2 jersey? Are you wondering what in the heck she's doing there, literally facing opposing players from across the net who are six, eight, even ten inches taller than her? It's a "one of these things is not like the other" moment.
-- Head coach Mark Rosen on Knop
The truth is, Caroline Knop doesn't belong there. One year ago, the 5-foot-7 freshman figured she'd be playing in the back row as a libero/defensive specialist, not an outside hitter. Those same girls she's standing toe-to-toe with? Yeah, they are bigger and more physical. Of the 70 players listed as outside hitters on Big Ten rosters, 83 percent of them stand above six-feet tall (average height: 6-foot-1).
They might underestimate her and think she'll be an easy target to exploit. But even if that's not how they really feel, Knop wants them to.
It seems like there's one of those players on every team, a player whose chip on their shoulder looks more like a boulder. This person is an underdog, someone who's faced with a seemingly impossible task and says, "Bring it on." And how can you not cheer for an underdog?
For this team, that's Knop.
"What an awesome challenge that is. I will excel at that," she says. "You look at me, I'm nothing, but I want people thinking that. If the coaches tell me to go get a kill against a girl that's 6-foot-6, I'm all about that. Give it to me."
"I will not lose. I can't lose. There's no way."
When talking to Knop -- "CK" for short -- you can't help but hear the confidence that comes through in her voice. She's constantly toeing the line between confidence and cockiness.
Maybe it's why she's met this particular challenge head on and found success. While her hitting percentage would be better if she were a few inches taller, she is still averaging 2.70 kills per set and 2.51 digs per set, more than respectable numbers for outside hitters in their rookie seasons. Going into Wednesday's match with No. 4 Penn State, Knop has recorded eight double-doubles on the season, second-best among all freshmen in the Big Ten.
Head coach Mark Rosen likens Knop's swagger to program greats Erin Moore and Juliana Paz. Neither of those two were as outgoing and external as a freshman like Knop currently is, but Rosen says that's exactly what makes her unique.
"She's unusual compared to most humans and I mean that in the most positive way possible," he said. "I probably had more texts from opposing coaches about her on the recruiting trail in the last two years than any other kid we've gone after. They were like, 'I love that kid. I just hope you don't have too many of them.'"
Going into the season, Rosen knew his team's pin hitters were going to look a little different after graduating multi-year starters Lexi Erwin and Molly Toon off last year's team. Their two would-be replacements, upperclassmen Kelly Murphy and Ally Davis, both went down with season-ending injuries by the end of the first Big Ten match. Playing in the nation's toughest conference is hard enough, but doing it with two true freshmen in the attack and little-to-no depth behind them has posed an incredible challenge.
One of them was a true outside hitter in Adeja Lambert, though Rosen figured it would take her some time to get acclimated to the style of play. The other was Knop, who Rosen felt had the mechanics and mentality to make an instant impact.
If there was another advantage Knop had, it was her incredible athletic talents. She was a four-year, four-sport athlete at LaSalle High School in Pasadena, balancing both volleyball and golf in the fall, basketball in the winter and softball in the spring. That's an amazing 16 varsity letters, making her the most decorated female athlete in the history of her high school.
Knop believes that she's a better player and a better teammate on the volleyball court from having played all those different sports. Each one provided new experiences that she might not have had if she chose to stick with just one of them.
It's a good thing, too. Despite the physical shortcomings, the move to the front row, however temporary, has gone better than expected. She may not stay there, but Rosen isn't counting her out.
"CK showed she could get it done," Rosen said. "Her personality was something we really wanted on the floor at all times. Not a lot of kids her size can do what she can do on the outside. I don't think she has a ceiling for how good she can be."
Knop will be the first one to admit that she's different than most, but she embraces it. When she was younger, she once asked her parents if she could wear two different shoes at the same time, just because she didn't want to look like everyone else. When that got shot down, she tried the same thing with socks. That didn't fly either.
So before one of her matches freshman year, she took a bandana, folded it up and tied it around her forehead like a headband. Why? Because nobody else was doing it.
"Why be the same as everyone else?" she asks. "I've always been about doing things a little differently."
Four years and nearly 20 bandanas later, it's now uniquely her thing, but that doesn't mean she's patented anything. During the team's match on Halloween against Northwestern, she glanced over the crowd and saw several little girls wearing headbands of their own, imitating her look.
It didn't even take three months for people to start catching on. If in five years every volleyball player is wearing bandanas as headbands, you know whom to trace the trend back to.
There's still a few weeks left in the season. While Knop certainly isn't looking ahead any, she is excited about the spring because it gives her a chance to improve in several areas without worrying about competition. But until that time comes, the competition should really be worrying about her.
"I don't care how many kills or how many digs I have in a night. I don't care about any of that," she said. "If Mark told me to go into a corner and stand on my head for five minutes, I'd go and do it until I was blue in the face if it meant we'd win. This year has been tough, but we will be successful. I promise you."
