Former volleyball player and youth national team coach reveals how Dražen Petrović inspired her love for sports, why she regrets not discovering the sand earlier, and how her daughter Lana continues the family sports story
Erika Drviš, a former volleyball player and current coach of youth beach volleyball national teams, spoke candidly to Večernji list about her career, family, and sporting beginnings that were, interestingly, tied to a completely different sport.
As a girl, she dreamed of the basketball court, and the main culprit for that was Dražen Petrović. "Probably because of Dražen Petrović, I wanted to play basketball. At that time, he was very popular, an icon to the entire former country, and we all looked up to him," Erika recalled for Večernji list. However, her school offered volleyball, and so everything took a different path.
Before volleyball, she briefly trained swimming in Pula but gave it up because the pool wasn't nearby. In the fifth grade of elementary school, she started volleyball, and by the sixth grade, she had her first real experience on the court. "I remember those moments when I entered the game; I just got rid of the ball, immediately passing it over. I'll never forget that," Drviš said.
The conditions back then were different, they used a hard, leather ball, and missing practice had its consequences. "If you missed one practice, you'd get bruises, so you couldn't afford to skip practices," she added. With her generation, in 1991, she became the cadet champion of the former country in Subotica. "We were really a good team. We trained every day. It wasn't a problem for me to walk to school and then to practice, even though it wasn't that close," she recalled.
After playing in the Croatian League and representing the youth national teams alongside Barbara Jelić and Nataša Osmokrović, in 1998 she received a volleyball scholarship and went to America. There, she experienced a completely different treatment of athletes. "For that time, America was at least 20 years ahead of us, both in terms of studying and, most importantly, in how they valued athletes. There, an athlete has everything. They have a whole team involved in their development, assistant coaches, physiotherapists, laundry service, facilities, gyms, a pool, everything is at your service," she emphasized for Večernji list.
It was in America that she became the university's best defensive player. "Defense and serve reception always came naturally to me. I loved receiving serves, and my goal was to pass the ball to the setter so they could set it to whoever they wanted. That was the best feeling of all," she described.
Part of her life became public through her relationship with the famous Croatian boxer Stipe Drviš. She now speaks calmly about that period. "It's all part of life. I think the worst moment was when I decided I no longer wanted to be with him, and then that famous 'Farma' show happened. That's when you realize how much a reality show brings more popularity than years of training, sweat, and world champion titles," Drviš said for Večernji list.
She was particularly bothered by inaccurate information in the media. "You realize how important it is that something is news, while the content matters less. Later, articles were written with wrong dates, wrong information... Then you simply realize: let them write. I don't care," she stated.
From her relationship with Stipe Drviš, her daughter Lana was born, who is already building her own sports career. "Lana is a young, promising volleyball player. She's going with the Croatian U17 national team to the World Championship in Chile," Erika said proudly.
Today, Erika Drviš is the coach of youth beach volleyball national teams and actively works on popularizing the sport. "We want to involve as many children as possible in this sport. Just because someone starts training indoor volleyball doesn't necessarily mean they'll love the sand. Beach volleyball is a bit more challenging sport," she explained.
Although she built her career indoors, she admits she regrets not discovering the sand earlier. At 179 centimeters tall, she was aware of her limitations. "I was aware that with my height of 179 centimeters, I could hardly compete with players who were 190 centimeters or taller in the indoor game. Back then, there was no libero position that suited me because I always loved playing defense. In beach volleyball, even a shorter player can do a lot," she said.
She also tried snow volleyball, where she and her cousin became Croatian champions at the first edition of the championship on Platak. "We played in pairs, the court was the same as on sand, only the surface was snow. We played in soccer cleats. It's much more slippery; you slide more on defense than on sand, but you can jump higher. It was an interesting experience," she described for Večernji list.
