Draft Prospect Profile: L Emmy Klika
Klika has put in the work to capture a leading role on one of the nation's premier college teams.
Surrounded by stars at every position at Pitt last season, the spotlight rarely shone on junior libero Emmy Klika. She played a season of quality volleyball for the Panthers, who were, for my money, the most fun team in the country to watch. However, sharing the court with a brilliant collection of front row players and multiple Freshman of the Year contenders, it wasn’t in the cards for Klika to be the face of last year’s team.
Now a senior, she’s ready to embrace a larger role in 2024.
Time will always be the ally of a player like Klika, a grinder who loves the mental side of the game and repeatedly extolled the virtues of hard work and practice. She mentioned her love of learning right away when I interviewed her in late June. It was the way she embraces the process of deepening her understanding of the game that lingered with me after revisiting our conversation for this article.
“I think being a part of this program specifically has really expanded my love of learning,” she said. “You have to come in with a growth mindset, be willing to learn new things, change your game, lean into discomfort, like, you're not going to get better if you're not experimenting or open to trying new things. I've just grown to be more comfortable trying new things and experimenting with things in my game and I think Fish has just created that type of environment where everyone kind of has that same mindset coming in.”
She went on to explain a fundamental change that Head Coach Dan Fisher — “a genius when it comes to volleyball” — has helped her put into action.
“Coaches growing up always say, like, ‘Dig it super high; give your setter time.’ But at this level, the hitters are hitting with so much power, like, super hard, so you actually have more control when you focus on digging it lower,” said Klika. “So that was something that was hard to implement into my game just because of how different it is from lower levels as you get to higher level volleyball. Once I really dove into that and committed to that, making that part of my game, I've seen so much improvement in my defense overall.”
Having been named to multiple All-Conference Academic teams, Klika has benefitted from the intersection of her physical talents and the classroom.
“I've always been kind of a nerd, like in school. I enjoy taking new classes. I just finished my undergrad and I majored in natural sciences and minored in exercise science so I kind of bridged my love for sports and athletics with my interest in science and biology. It's been really cool to learn about those hand in hand and just see where that takes place in my life as an athlete,” she said.
A wealth of knowledge underpins what Klika does on the court, but it’s her unwavering confidence that breathes life into Klika’s game. Even when discussing the sport with some of the best upperclassmen around, there are often shy or embarrassed chuckles when the conversation turns to passing and digging. By contrast, Klika relished the opportunity to talk about it. She sees every ball that comes over the net as an opportunity.
“I try to set a good example in the gym of thinking I can get every ball, dig every ball, diving even though it might seem a little crazy and unrealistic. I'm always making a move as if I can get to anything and that's kind of a contagious thing among like the whole team,” she said.
“There's a level of reading what's going on on the other side of the net, like the arm of the hitter or the server, but the mentality part is more just filling yourself with confidence that you can dig whatever's coming your way. I just stare at the server and all that's going through my mind is like ‘This serve is easy, I'm gonna dime it.’ That's why I'm such a hard worker and I do a lot of reps in the gym; I want to trust my training and have like the highest level confidence possible in the biggest high pressure situations and be able to tell myself those things.”
Klika was most effusive on the topic of serve-receive, which she characterized as one of the most important aspects of the game.
“Serve-receive is one of the things I work on the most and get the most like reps at. So, I'm pretty confident in my ability and if we're struggling to get out of a rotation or something, I'm comfortable being like, ‘Hey, I'm gonna take a step over, be, like, super aggressive so I can pass the ball and get us back on track.’”
The way Klika sees it, gaining the trust of her teammates is an essential part of being an effective component of Pitt’s serve-receive. A lack of trust leads to a breakdown in communication and erodes their ability to prevent aces.
“It's the first touch, so without that first touch, you can't really get your offense going, so it's really important that I build a good relationship with the passers next to me. If I say I'm going to take this ball in our seam, they need to trust that I'm going to be there and same thing with me for them,” the libero explained. “The biggest and worst thing there can be is miscommunication and no one going for it. So I think I work hard to build that relationship, whether it's in the gym doing or watching film after a game with the other passers to prepare for a game, identifying what kind of serve a girl has or what her tendencies are.”
Klika pointed to the relationship with her teammates as a key to keeping the ship afloat on defense on nights when the players on her flanks aren’t playing their best.
“I would say at my position, I'm the captain of the back row. For example, Torrey [Stafford], when she’s having an off day or something, I know the things I should say to her that would be the best to bring her out of a hole, just because of our experience passing next to each other in the gym every single day,” she said.
“Once we hit the court for a game, we've had moments like that in practice where we've been able to work that out. That's not our first time doing that,” she continued. “So I can be like, ‘Hey, just, just focus on target. Don't think about anything else.’ And then I know that's something that resonates with her and the same thing with the other primary passers. There's certain things I can say to them that I know they appreciate rather than saying something that's just going to make it worse, you know.”
Just like with every other aspect of the game, Klika pointed out the value of hard work in building the bridges that allow her to have a steadying influence on her teammates.
“The amount of time we spend in the gym together and like practicing or like getting extra stuff in, I can kind of have a read on what they need in that moment. And the same thing goes for me with them too. Like they know what words or, like, cues or keys work best for me. And we can just help each other like simplify it. Passing is very mental, so the best thing to do is just clear your head and I think we do a good job working together if there's like a bad day or bad moment.”
She essentially laid out her mission statement for me this way:
“I think the most important thing for a libero is consistency and like being just a rock back there,” she mused. “If I can do my job and like have a lot of positive passes, be like that spark on defense, making those plays that give the team momentum as well as keeping the rest of the girls on the court calm in high pressure situations or just knowing that I'm trusted by my teammates and they have full confidence in me, I think that would be a pretty good situation.”
With another season at Pitt in her immediate future, Klika badly wants to bring home the National Championship that has so narrowly eluded the Panthers in the last few seasons. After that, though, she’s open to whatever opportunities are available to her to stay involved in the sport she loves.
In the professional landscape of the sport, there aren’t many libero spots to go around, so I asked Klika why a team should be willing to invest one in her. With a laugh, she agreed, and took a moment to gather her thoughts before saying this:
“I think every time I step into a gym, especially like on a new team, I want to be the hardest worker there. I know I would bring to the table a high level of dedication to the team and to my individual craft. I think I'm pretty consistent energy-wise, effort, attitude, and just my level of play. I try to just stay very level-headed and I think that's one of my best qualities is you know what you're going to get with me. I'm always going to bring it. I'm always going to be competitive. I'm going to go for everything.”
The PVF will have plenty of exposure to her by the time the draft rolls around this winter, as former teammate Chiamaka Nwokolo was a first round draft pick last year and Rachel Fairbanks and Valeria Vasquez Gomez are potentially draftworthy players in this year’s class. Sports teams in every league have fallen for lesser players than Klika for their devotion. In my personal evaluation of Klika, she would be a worthy late round draft pick and is potentially rosterable as a team’s backup libero.
Some quotes have been lightly altered for clarity. To read the full transcript of my interview with Klika, click here. To watch full games, click here and here.