DeRocco ready to take on world’s best

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This article was published 01/06/2017 (3229 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When you look at Jason DeRocco’s family tree, it’s no surprise to see he’s a member of the Canadian men’s volleyball team.

Both his mother, Valerie, and father, Stelio, played for the Canadian national teams in the 1970s. His older brother Mike also played at the University of Alberta as a setter, where he won two national championships.

DeRocco says the car rides home from games with his parents is where he learned the most about volleyball.

“They taught me so much on the rides home,” DeRocco said. “It just helped having all these people around to push my career.”

Despite all of his family’s volleyball achievements, DeRocco didn’t always want to follow in their footsteps.

“I grew up on the Canadian lifestyle. I wanted to play hockey. I never really thought about volleyball,” the 6-5 outside hitter said.

When DeRocco was 16, his mother encouraged him to put his stick down and give club volleyball a try. In his first summer of playing volleyball, he grew five inches.

“It was kinda funny when I made the switch, it’s like my body said, ‘You need to be taller to do this.’”

Since DeRocco hung up the skates, he hasn’t looked back. He had a successful volleyball career at Miles Macdonnell Collegiate before he took his talents to the University of Alberta to join his brother.

DeRocco, 27, now plays professionally in Poland for Jastrzebski Wegiel. He came off a big season where he helped his club win a bronze medal in their league — PlusLiga. However, his father can’t always cheer for his son in club competition.

“My dad coaches a team that’s only 40 minutes away from me. We’re technically enemies. We play in the same league,” DeRocco said.

Stelio coaches MKS Bedzin, who split the season series with Jason’s club. Stelio says there’s a lot of chirping that goes on between him and his son before their teams meet.

“We saw each other on the court the very first time and he was a little bit nonchalant, pretending not to look over,” Stelio said. “Then, we would glance at each other with some little smirks, but then it was game on, business as usual. But afterwards, it was back to being father and son.”

Last summer, DeRocco was left off of the travelling team. He wasn’t on the roster that won Group 2 of the FIVB Men’s Volleyball World League and he wasn’t a part of the team that finished fifth at the Rio Olympics either. He spent the summer training at the team’s training facility in Gatineau, Que.

“When you have that many players that are that good, you have to be able to accept that sometimes guys are going to be playing better or sometimes you’re playing better but the team needs other players at that moment,” DeRocco said. “That was kind of the situation I was put in and you just got to accept it.”

DeRocco says last year’s snub pushed him to train even harder in the off-season and perform well with his Polish club. Despite the disappointment of missing out on the Olympics, he says it wasn’t hard for him to support the national team.

“I’ve played with a lot of those guys since we were 18 years old. For me, it was an emotionally proud moment to see my friends at that level. I was overwhelmed that they were playing so well and it was beautiful to watch,” he said.

DeRocco’s goal is to help Canada get back to the Olympics, but before he does that he and his teammates are determined to have a strong showing in Group 1 of the 12-team World League this summer. Canada qualified for Group 1 by defeating Portugal in the Group 2 final last year. This is the first time Canada has qualified for Group 1 of FIVB Volleyball World League. Canada’s men’s team is currently ranked eighth in the world.

“We want to go top six and head to Brazil for the final round. That is something that we’re really pushing to get,” he said.

DeRocco and Team Canada start World League in Pool B with the United States, Belgium and Serbia. Canada’s first game is today against Belgium in Novi Sad, Serbia at 9 a.m. local time. Canada’s matches will be online at cbcsports.ca.

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @TaylorAllen31