Volleyball's 25: Gudula Staub
Tuesday, August 5, 2008 | Volleyball
By: Sean Cartell
UF Communications
Editor's Note: This is the second of a 25-part daily series on GatorZone.com honoring the great players in Florida volleyball history (in no particular rank or order) leading up to the start of the 25th season since Gator volleyball was reinstated as a varsity sport prior to the 1984 campaign.
Her path to becoming Florida's first All-American in school history was just as unique as her path from Stuttgart, Germany, to Gainesville, Fla. But both journeys resulted in Gudula “Gudi” Staub (1991-92) becoming one of Florida's all-time greats and helping new head coach Mary Wise start a volleyball dynasty with the Gators.
Staub was a standout athlete in her native country, but with the organization of Germany's higher education system, universities did not sponsor sports teams. Staub had competed in 150 German national competitions and was a member of three German championship teams, having been voted the best player of Germany in 1989.
She was seeking a place to both further her education and her volleyball career, but wasn't sure of what her options would be, so she continued studying political science and physical education in her hometown.
And then she received a call from Florida's dynamic outside hitter Steffi Legall, who also was from Germany. Legall, who would be a senior captain on the Gators' 1991 squad, informed Staub of some exciting news over the telephone.
“Steffi started calling me in May 1991 to see if I was still interested in coming to the US,” Staub said in a Sept. 24, 1992 issue of Gator Bait Magazine. “She told me that Florida was getting a new coach and that there was going to be a new motivation there to have a good program. She also told me how good the school was academically, so I was very interested.”
When Staub 6-foot-1, expressed her interest in coming across the ocean to play volleyball for the Gators, Legall knew she had one more phone call to make.
“Steffi gave me a call in Lexington right after I was hired at UF,” Wise told Alligator writer Hugh Hencken in an Aug. 29, 1991 article. “She told me about Gudi and gave me her address in Germany. I wrote her a letter and told her a little about myself and that I would like to talk to her.”
With two open scholarships, Wise offered one to Staub after speaking with her on the telephone on several occasions over the next month.
“Steffi told me she had this friend that she played with on the German Junior National Team who was interested in coming to school in the United States,” Wise said in an Oct. 18, 1991, article by Ira Schoffel of the Alligator. “I said 'Why don't you tell me a little bit about her?' and about 15 seconds later, I said 'OK, I'm interested. It didn't take a brain surgeon to figure out from what she accomplished that she was good.”
Wise quickly realized that she had made the right decision.
“The first time Gudi hit the ball in practice, (assistant coach) Katie Weismiller and I just looked at each other and smiled,” Wise said. “We knew we had something special.”
Her move to a foreign country wasn't easy for Staub in a social sense, as she was forced to adjust to a new culture, a different level of volleyball and academics in a non-native language.
“It was really tough the first two weeks when I did not know anybody but Steffi,” Staub told the Gainesville Sun on Oct. 3, 1991. “But it was great to have Steffi help me to adjust to the university.”
But if her social adjustment was difficult, Staub's adjustment on the playing court was the exact opposite. She ran off 136 kills in the team's first 10 matches. A Tampa Tribune article on Sept. 24, 1991, noted the Gators' success was due in large part to what the newspaper called the “German connection,” featuring the German bond that Staub shared with Legall.
“It could be an advantage, I guess, since nobody knows what we're talking about,” Staub told the Tribune's Gregg Doyel. “I could tell her where to hit, and nobody would know anything. That would be kind of fun.”
Staub made her home debut on Sept. 7, 1991, and her offensive prowess immediately became a favorite of the Gator fan base. Florida was manhandling a Northeast Louisiana squad in that match in front of 1,174 fans, the second-largest to attend a home match in school history.
A number of the fans were watching volleyball for the first time, coming in out of the sweltering Florida heat after tailgating for that evening's Gator football game. That was when Wise decided she wanted to do something to make the fans want to come back to future matches.
“As the crowd got bigger before the third game, I told the team to do something exciting for the crowd,” Wise said in a Gainesville Sun article on Sept. 8, 1991. “I even told them they could do cartwheels, but I purposely had Steffi be our server.”
The German connection thrived again - Legall did the unthinkable. She served out the entire game, as the Gators won 15-0 without ever allowing Northeast Louisiana to serve. In that frame, Staub had three kills and two blocks.
“I have never seen that before,” Wise exclaimed. “I have only heard about it.”
In a win against Fresno State in the Cal-State Fullerton tournament in mid-September, Staub punished the Bulldogs with a school-record 32 kills and was named to the All-Tournament team. Earlier that weekend, she had helped the Gators win a five-game two-and-a-half hour marathon match against No. 13 UC-Santa Barbara, which marked UF's first win against a ranked opponent in nearly three seasons.
On Sept. 20, 1991, Staub helped the Gators, ranked nationally for the first time in school history at No. 17, defeat Florida State, 3-0, for their first win against the Seminoles in Tallahassee since the 1985 campaign. That win propelled the Gators to the title at the Florida Four Tournament and Staub was named to the all-tournament team of that event.
While Staub was in just her first season playing collegiately, her vast international experience not only allowed her to excel, but her knowledge of the game allowed her to instruct and provide advice to her teammates that helped them improve.
“Gudi is like a teacher,” Wise told the Gainesville Sun in an Oct. 3, 1991 article. “She is like a coach on the court in terms of helping other players see things that they may not.”
If two of her roles on the Gator volleyball team were teacher and pupil, she also was a daughter. And there could not have been two parents more proud than hers on Oct, 4, 1991. Her mother and father traveled to Gainesville from Germany for the first time to watch their daughter play in the Orange and Blue.
What they witnessed that night was a feat that would have been considered improbable prior to Wise's hire and the subsequent change in expectations surrounding the Florida volleyball program.
What they witnessed was their daughter registering a match-high 27 kills in an upset of No. 5 LSU. It was the statement win Florida had been looking for and it was also the first time Gator fans were able to see first hand the new rally-scoring format that had been introduced to the NCAA that season as a means of deciding the fifth game- meaning that every serve would result in a point scored for one of the two teams was a change from the side-out style of play that was employed in games one through four.
“We had to beat LSU after my parents came all that way to see it,” Staub quipped.
Staub followed up that performance with a team-high 15 kills against Ole Miss the following Sunday before her parents returned home to Germany.
Her strong weekend against the Lady Tigers and Lady Rebels resulted in Staub being named the Southeastern Conference Player of the Week. She became the first player in school history to earn the award, which had been implemented prior to the start of the 1991 campaign.
Staub wasn't quick to rest on the laurels of that honor, as she played errorless volleyball, notching 17 kills and hitting .607 in 28 attempts in a 3-0 win against Auburn on the Plains. It marked Florida's first road SEC victory in two seasons.
Florida eased its way to the finals of the SEC Tournament in Mobile, Ala., before falling to LSU in the championship match. Staub had a match-high 16 kills to give her 518 put-downs on the year, which allowed her to break the Florida single-season record for kills. She was named an All-SEC selection and also named to the All-Tournament Team.
The Gators earned their second NCAA berth in program history in 1991 and Staub had a team-high 14 kills in helping Florida sweep Louisville in a first-round NCAA match-up in the Stephen C. O'Connell Center.
“Staub hurt us,” Louisville head coach Don Hardin told the Ocala Star-Banner following the match. “She is an outstanding player and we couldn't stop her. We didn't concern ourselves with her because she's an outstanding player and was going to get her kills anyway.”
Staub was named a first-team All-South Region selection prior to the team's round of 16 match with Texas in Baton Rouge, La. In that match, she went down with a sprained ankle, according to a Dec. 14, 1991 article in the Gainesville Sun by Paul Jenkins. But the injury didn't silence Staub, it re-energized her.
“When I sprained my ankle, I was a little angry,” Staub told the Sun. “That helped me get back in it. I hadn't played such a good blocking team since I've been here and I had to adjust. I tried to do some different things.”
Her match-high 16 kills and 19 digs helped the Gators top the Longhorns in a four-game match and advance to the regional final against nemesis LSU.
“I stressed all week to be patient offensively, be patient offensively,” Wise told Lee Feinswog of the Advocate. “But there's nothing patient about Gudi Staub.”
Florida had been the only team to beat the 34-1 Tigers during the 1991 campaign, but that night LSU would avenge the loss with a four-game win against the Gators in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. Staub made the all-tournament team after recording 29 kills and 21 digs.
Staub became the first AVCA All-American in school history in 1991, proving to Wise that she made the right decision to give Staub one of her two remaining scholarships entering the 1991 campaign.
“I told Steffi Legall that her call to me about Gudi was the second-best phone call I've had this year,” Wise told Jenkins of the Gainesville Sun on Dec. 19, 1991. “The first was when (former Associate AD/Women's Sports) Ann Marie (Lawler) called to say I got the job at Florida.”
Staub finished the year with 577 kills and ranked first in the SEC in kills per game (4.51). She finished 11th in the nation in hitting percentage with a .382 clip.
“I think it's good for the university to have a player named All-America, but as a person, this doesn't change me,” Staub said. “I'm not going to stop practicing and working hard because I'm All-America. Hopefully next year we can make it to the Final Four.”
Wise credited not only Staub's strong play, but also her positive attitude, in describing the player's affect on her team.
“Gudi's whole attitude has been to enjoy this experience,” Wise said. “She has a very easy-going personality and she's just let troubles bounce off her back. This is one of the first times in her playing career that she has been one of the oldest players and I think she enjoyed that.”
The fact that Staub would enter the 1992 campaign as the team's clear-cut leader was perhaps most evidenced by the fact that a photo of her soaring to attack a volleyball was the only picture featured on the cover of the team's media guide that season.
“Gudi could play any position on the court,” Wise said in the outlook section of the 1992 media guide. “She may play more than just one for us, because the problem with having her on the outside is that we limit how many times she has a chance to block. Putting Gudi on the outside allows her to be what her teammates like to call 'The Terminator.' It allows her to use her ability to end a play.”
Staub had returned home to her native Germany for the summer between her junior and senior seasons and received harsh words from her former national team coach who said he did not want her to go back to Florida. While Staub was disappointed in her coach's request, the decision to return to Gainesville wasn't difficult.
“He wanted me to stay there so he could see how I was progressing,” Staub told then-Gainesville Sun columnist Mike Bianchi in an Oct. 20, 1992 column. “Obviously, he's not going to come over here to watch me play, but I knew what I wanted to do. It's so much more enjoyable playing here without so much competition.”
Staub was 23 years old when the 1992 season began, making her the oldest member of the team by more than a year.
“I can feel that I'm the oldest one,” Staub said in an Aug. 25, 1992, article by the Alligator. “All the freshmen are telling me all the time. They give me a hard time because I'm a little bit older than they are.”
But it wasn't her age that opposing teams would be trying to combat in the upcoming season. Wise had become concerned that with Staub's success in her first season, a bulls-eye was looming over her star player.
“It will be a challenge for Gudi, because teams are going to prepare to stop her,” Wise said. “She will have every defense in volleyball thrown at her.”
Regardless of the preparation of the team's opposition, it appeared early on that there was no stopping Staub. In her first seven matches of her senior season, she hit .561, which ranked fourth nationally and led the SEC. Staub began to appreciate her role as the team's leader as the 1992 campaign got underway.
“I've never played on a team before where so many people looked to me for help,” Staub told Gator Bait in a Sept. 24, 1992, feature article. “I really enjoy it. Before, there was always an older person around to take charge, but here that is me. I am always talking to the younger players in practice because I can help them, and Mary likes that.”
While her teammates may have regularly joked about Staub's age, there was no joking when it came to learning from her experience.
“From the time Gudi stepped on the court, I was in awe of her,” teammate Keri Uptegraph told the Tampa Tribune on Dec. 11, 1992. “I had never been on the same court with anybody like her. The first time she hit the ball, my mouth dropped.
The fans liked her effect on the program, regularly chanting “Gu-di, Gu-di.” And Florida didn't disappoint, winning every match played at home in Mary Wise's first two seasons.
“We have a lot of confidence at home,” Staub told the Gainesville Sun in an Oct. 3, 1992 article. “We try to play a more exciting kind of volleyball for the fans. The crowds are a major reason for our home winning streak. I do not think we would have it without the fans.”
Staub was named the SEC's first Player of the Week that year, recording 31 kills in 65 attempts on .412 hitting with 23 digs and six blocks in a weekend sweep of South Carolina and Georgia.
Much of the success of the team came from its international players, as profiled in an Oct. 16, 1992 story in the Gainesville Sun. Staub, along with junior Patricia Moreno from Brazil and Aycan Gokberk of Turkey, had become leaders on the squad.
“I think that Mary knows that when you come from a different country, it is a lot harder than if you came from Michigan,” Staub said. “She knows that we need some time at the beginning, in school and on the court, too.”
In an Oct. 16 match against Wise's former Kentucky team, the Gators did not seem to have the energy that was characteristic of its past two seasons. Wise had to work hard to find answers and inspire her team in a four-game win against the 19th-ranked Wildcats. Staub, who was quoted as saying that the team did not play well that night, finished with 25 kills and a team-high 16 digs.
“When it's tight and you are in crunch time, a great player, an All-American can step it up,” Wise told the Gainesville Sun. “There is no question that we jumped on Gudi's back, and she led the team to the win.”
Florida cruised to the SEC regular-season championship that season under Staub's direction. But, it was Staub's role as a leader, making the UF volleyball team a team in the true sense of the word, that made the difference.
“Everybody on this team is very close,” she said in a Nov. 24, 1992 edition of Gator Bait. “The younger players have come in and proven they can play at this level. We all believe in each other. Now, we have a lot of weapons. The other teams can't just concentrate on me.”
The Gators clinched the 1992 SEC Tournament Championship, moved to No. 5 in the national rankings and earned an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Staub was named the Most Valuable Player of the SEC Tournament.
Staub battled through a cold to record 11 kills in a first-round thrashing of Florida State in the NCAA First Round, but she responded to notch 16 kills and come up with 27 digs against Kentucky in the tournament's round of 16.
In the regional final against Texas, played in the friendly confines of the Stephen C. O'Connell center, Staub fell to the ground in game one with a twisted left ankle that silenced the crowd of 2,656, according to a Dec. 13, 1992 article by the Gainesville Sun.
Staub, however, rebounded to come back into the game. It couldn't have been a more perfect ending as a block by Staub ended the match and sent the Gators to their first Final Four in program history.
“I just told the trainer to tape it as tight as they could,” she said. “I knew I wanted to get back out there, and I was able to come back.”
She finished with 21 digs against the Longhorns and was named to the NCAA All-South Region team for the second consecutive year.
Florida fell to top-ranked UCLA in the NCAA semifinal match-up, but ended the season with a 34-2 record as Staub had 19 kills in the match.
“Right now, it's hard to explain how we feel,” Staub told the Florida Times-Union following the match. “We're not disappointed that we lost. We played our best.”
Staub finished her career with a second consecutive All-America honor that made her UF's first-ever two-time All-America selection. She finished her career as the Gators' leader in kills per game (4.44), which currently ranks third on the school's all-time charts. She also currently ranks fourth all-time in digs per game (3.18).
“I just heard so many good things about Florida - the coaches and the team from Steffi that I couldn't say no,” Staub told the Gainesville Sun in a Dec. 19, 1991, article. “It was the best decision I could ever make.”
END OF REPORT
