VOLLEYBALL
LONDON OLYMPICS
Medal talk with... Foluke Akinradewo
People have a long history of mispronounc- ing Foluke Akinradewo. The announcer at the indoor volleyball venue at the London Olympics struggled with it for the entire two weeks.
But we should be optimistic that the gen- eral populous will have better success with it in the future. Two reasons for that: • Akinradewo is one of the top players on the U.S. Women’s National Volleyball Team and is clearly a player that the program hopes to keep around for a long time. • It’s not really that diffi cult to master. “When people look at it, it looks daunting,” Akinradewo says. “But it’s actually said just how it’s spelled.” For future reference, here’s phonetic guide: Fa-LUKE-uh ahh-kin-rah-DAY-woe. The 25-year-old middle blocker from Plantation, Fla., started on the U.S. silver- medal team at the London Olympics, and she has a long string of accomplishments. Among them: All-American seasons at Stanford and a most valuable player award from the 2010 FIVB World Grand Prix, where the U.S. came home with the gold. Two days before she jumped on a plane to begin her professional club season in Azerbaijan, she talked with VolleyballUSA about the Olympics, reality TV and her big career dilemma: one more shot at an Olympic gold medal or medical school?
You’ve dealt with people mispronouncing your name your entire life, right?
Yeah, absolutely. But it’s gotten better. As I’ve been in this game longer and people know me more, people are doing a better job of saying it.
Was there a moment at the Olympics where you said to yourself, “OK, this is not just an- other tournament?”
The very fi rst match against Korea was when I felt it. I tried to make myself believe that it was just like any other tournament, but that very fi rst match, I was getting nervous. I had to go to the bathroom all the time and I was thinking, ‘What’s going on?’ And (U.S. setter) Lindsey Berg said, ‘It’s OK to be nervous. It is the Olympics.’ When I walked out there and saw all the fans, it felt like the Olympic moment – like this is what every- one dreams about. But once we got the fi rst set under our belts and everyone’s nerves calmed, then it honestly felt like just another tournament.
Along with winning championships like the
FIVB World Grand Prix with the national team, you’ve also been in several championship matches in college and international volleyball where your team hasn’t won – NCAA fi nals, the gold-medal match at the Olympics. Which is a more valuable learning experience?
I’d say you learn from both. When you are fortunate enough to win, you learn that you
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was just really frustrating. You kind of feel helpless. You’re looking around thinking, ‘What can we do? What went wrong?’ And just knowing that you’re so close to doing something so great and falling short, it really hurts. But since then, I’ve stepped back and looked at all we accomplished, and I’m very proud of our team.
What’s something you’ve learned over the years that might help young players become better blockers?
Blocking is something that I continue to struggle with. It’s the hardest thing for me. (Former U.S. Coach) Hugh (McCutcheon) would always say, ‘What are you looking at?’ It’s important to make sure you’re looking at the right thing – looking to see what the setter is doing. Are you looking at the ball too long? If so, then you’re not going to get a good read on the setter. And then another thing is making sure you go straight over instead of making two moves – up and over. You just want to press low and over.
You’ve said in the past that you weren’t very good at volleyball when you fi rst started. That’s hard to believe.
have what it takes and you can go into each match with confi dence because you’ve put in the work and you’ve gotten the results. When you come up short and you get silver, it’s hard. But that last match (at the Olym- pics), I really feel like we just got outplayed. We just came up short, and we had put in so much work the past four years – that grind every single day. I don’t think it was some- thing where you could pinpoint what we need to work on; I just think it was one of those matches where Brazil started off really slow and then, after that, could do no wrong, and we made a lot more errors. But after losing, you get that hunger, and you want to come back and do better next time.
You enjoy reality TV. Any good ideas for a
good reality show involving volleyball? I think it would be interesting to do one (on the national team), but I’m not sure it would be good for the team. With reality TV, there’s a lot of drama that goes on, and that’s what gets the fans. That’s not necessarily going to help us win matches. (Laughs)
Karch said at the press conference announc- ing that he had taken the head coach job that the gold-medal match carries a toll. He said the loss still stings. Do you feel that way, too?
Absolutely. I’m not typically the kind of person who will break down and cry after losing a match, but we put so much into it and we had an opportunity to make history (as the fi rst U.S. Olympic Women’s Volleyball gold-medal team) and we came up short. It
Oh, I was awful. My high school coach (Lisa Zielinski) put me on the varsity clearly because I was athletic, not because I had any volleyball skills. I remember my fi rst day look- ing at the JV girls and thinking, “Oh my gosh, they are so good. Why am I on this court with the varsity players?”
Was it to the point where you thought about quitting?
I don’t remember thinking that I was so bad that I wanted to quit. I think I wanted to wait it out and see how it went. And each and every day, I started loving the sport more and more, and I started improving a little bit at a time.
There’s a good message in there for young players.
Absolutely. With most things in life, it isn’t easy in the beginning, but once you wait it out a little bit and you start to grow, then you’re going to get the rewards of your hard work. Unfortunately, people sometimes give up too easily. If I would have gone home and said to my mom, ‘I suck. I don’t want to do this anymore,’ I wouldn’t be on the phone with you today talking about my Olympic experience.
It’s safe to say that new Coach Kiraly wants
you around for at least four more years, but you also have ambitions to go to medical school and become an orthopedic surgeon. Will you hold off on that to pursue a gold medal?
I’m still not sure. I haven’t decided. But I do know that losing to Brazil made me a little hungrier, so I do have an itch to play the game some more.
PHOTO: ANDREW P. SCOTT / US PRESSWIRE
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