The game is played by giants, by 6-footers with springs for legs and broomsticks for arms.
Five-foot-3 senior Kera Pappas is an anomaly, an exception to the volleyball rule.
“Everywhere I go,” she said, “I’m usually the shortest person on the team.”
Canyon High girls volleyball coach Matt Peacock said on the rare occasion Pappas leaps during a match or in practice, only her hand clears the net, and even that took time to accomplish.
Peacock has coached long enough, though, to know a girl’s height is not indicative of her heart.
“We can have every girl on our squad be 6-foot-9,” Peacock said, “but if no one can feed them the ball, no one can lead them, no one can get them playing as a unit and see the game, then what? Kera does a great job seeing the game, of figuring out who’s the best person to set to at that point in time.
“She’s done a great job learning that skill, that position,” Peacock continued. “Where she is now, we’re not the same team when she’s not on the floor.”
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Multiple sports failed to pique Pappas’ interest growing up. Jane Pappas just wanted her daughter to show a passion for something.
Jane Pappas, Kera’s mother, set for two years in the 1980s at Cerritos High. She, too, played volleyball standing at 5-foot-3.
After one day stumbling upon an Internet flier for community programs sanctioned by USA Volleyball, Pappas thought perhaps her preteen daughter would love the sport she loved as a child and later as a teenager.
Pappas wound up coaching her daughter’s first team, doing her best to bring the competitor out of her shy beginner. The sport’s pace lured Kera Pappas in, and soon enough, she began playing at the Goldenwest Volleyball Club.
“She had the privilege of working with really good coaches,” Jane Pappas said. “They helped her stay focused, and really believed in her and encouraged her. They taught her not to give up, and to believe in herself. Every kid – tall or short – needs to have somebody believe in them.”
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Other than their height and their position, Jane Pappas sees little of herself in Kera when watching her play volleyball.
“By no means was I the star athlete she is,” Jane Pappas said. “I played for fun. High school sports now, they’re played for fun, but it’s such a totally different level. Kera, it’s all her.”
There were times Kera Pappas felt insecure about her height; weekends spent at club tournaments where she often looked up to talk to peers. At times, Pappas said, it felt as though everyone looked down on her. Out of necessity, but out of disregard, too.
“Her dad and I have told her that 5-foot-3 is something you can’t change,” Jane Pappas said. “But if you work on the stuff you can change, then you can accomplish anything.”
Age and experience curtailed Kera Pappas’ insecurity, and her setting – its precision and consistency – improved substantially.
“Because of her height, I don’t think some coaches really gave her much attention,” her mother said. “So she had to work and fight for her spot every season. She always knew there was somebody else after her spot.”
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Kera Pappas once cared only about pleasing the older girls in Canyon’s program.
As an underclassman playing sparingly on varsity, Pappas wanted her teammates looking good. She played nervous, as a result, dreading mistakes.
Peacock arrived in 2012, and has since seen Pappas’ maturation. He named her a team captain this fall, as Canyon attempts to qualify for the postseason a third consecutive year under Peacock.
“When she plays,” Peacock said, “other girls look to her, look at the confidence she has on the court. They feed off that, and that’s grown throughout the years. Now you can see that, as a senior, she has that leadership, that ability to lead.”
College awaits, and Pappas is weighing the pros and cons of playing volleyball four more years.
Doing so would likely require her to play for a school she wouldn’t have attended otherwise. Giving up the sport altogether is similarly disheartening.
“We’re very proud of her, of all her accomplishments,” Jane Pappas said. “She’s a great kid on and off the court.”
Contact the writer: 714-704-3790 or bwhitehead@ocregister.com
