Love at first spike: Anett Farkas’ rise to volleyball stardom

Daniel Park
Staff Writer

If you ever spot Annett Farkas on campus out of her sweatpants and VCU volleyball long-sleeve shirt, make sure you tell her you love her outfit. Because she does.

“Nobody even on campus knows there’s a volleyball team here,” Farkas said. “Usually I try to dress up when I go to class and other athletes don’t recognize me. Some people will walk right past me because I have regular clothes on.”

Carrying a 6-foot-2 frame, one would assume she attracts attention – but the humble senior doesn’t get distracted easily, and has set her priorities ruler straight: to pursue her dream with the degree she’ll attain in the spring. After being on the winning side of the net and lighting up the volleyball scene for 13 consecutive years, she will start anew and try to gain work experience with another passion of hers: fashion.

“Even though I love the game, playing pro would mean eating, sleeping and (then) practicing,” she said. “I’m trying to stay in the states and work.”

Volleyball wasn’t her first sport. Farkas tried figure skating when she was four years old.

“I thought it was my dream,” she said. “When I was in kindergarten I would remember going to practice before school, seeing the sun come up, ice in the morning, ballet in the afternoon.”

Her mother stopped taking her to the early-morning practices because Farkas had a habit of crying when she had to wake up. She said it’s fine, acknowledging that her taller stature is not ideal for the sport anyway. Farkas roller-skates for fun now instead.

Farkas decided to switch to volleyball from a Tv show she saw when she was 8 years old. She said she would study the moves of a Japanese Manga series character, Kozue Ayuhara. The Japanese children’s show,  “Attack No. 1,” retitled “Mila Superstar,” sparked Farkas’ interest in the sport as well.

“She hit (the ball) so hard it would disappear,” Anett recalled, “I wouldn’t leave my dad alone until he found a place for me to play volleyball.”

And find he did. Farkas’ dad created a club team and brought in Olympic Coach, Kotsis Attilane. Attilane happened to live near the Farkas family at the time of the creation of the team. The Hall of Fame coach took Farkas under her wing and mentored her for the next eight years.

“Gabi neni,” a title Farkas gave her coach, professed that a great volleyball player must be good everywhere on the court. Taking the advice to heart and hanging the wisdom of her mentor around her neck, the outside hitter was once another position: the ‘middle’. The coach assured her that she was a smart player, but not a powerful one. Dr. Attilane even had a hand in Farkas’ long-term goals, as she wanted to play college ball and study English in the U.K. Attilane redirected her player and connected her with a fellow Hungarian coach overseas at the University of New Orleans.

The transition was smooth, SATs and all, for the special member of the Hungarian Junior National Team. All the opportunities intricately designed for the star we have at VCU today could have been disregarded as false hope, but Farkas followed through.

Soon thereafter, however, the University of New Orleans  underwent budget cuts and was informed that the women’s volleyball squad would be dropped from Division I to Division III. Anett took action and decided that transferring to VCU would satisfy her best interests.

“As a young woman, Annet is a very mature, focused individual,” VCU coach James Finley said of Farkas, “…you know you can count on Anett. She’s always willing to learn…is very coachable.”

Finley said that he’s proud of the teammates voting her as one of the captains, and is happy that all her work ethic is paying off. The adjustment that she’s made in the last couple years at VCU, playing two different positions successfully is another accomplishment that boosts the coach’s confidence in her on the court.  He supports her decision to pursue fashion after her final season.

On the court, Farkas currently averages 2.25 kills and 2.13 digs per set and has the Rams off to a 12-1 start for the first time in school history.

Off the court, Farkas studies hard to maintain a high GPA. Keeping up-to-date with fashion trends and following the hectic days of the Fashion Week at VCU, you could find the star hiding in the small Black Sheep restaurant off West Marshall Street with her friends.

Farkas fluently speaks Hungarian, German, and English, and knows a bit of French. If you catch her with her earplugs in, she’s bobbing her head to hip-hop music like Drake, Jay-Z and Kanye West.

“I’m just going with the flow,” she said.