Haven’t done one of these in a while. The last was Summer Ross over two months ago. Once again I’ve gone on an unscheduled posting lull (overnight work shifts are the devil’s spawn, I’ll just say that), so here I go trying to get back into the swing of things.
I actually had a mind to write about Tillie before one of the biggest results of the still-young season came down Wednesday night, as Tillie’s UC Irvine Anteaters, defending national champions, lost to MPSF debutants California Baptist in five sets. UC Irvine still have their big match with BYU this weekend, which I will write up. If they win that one….god, who’s #1 now? It’s BYU’s to lose.
But this post is about Tillie. Tillie was born February 11, 1990 in Cagnus-sur-Mer, France. His is an athletic family, as his father Laurent and his mother Caroline, who is Dutch by birth, both played volleyball at the professional and Olympic levels. His older brother Kim played basketball for the University of Utah and now does professionally back in France, and his younger brother Killian is considered a top recruit in both basketball and volleyball. Kevin too played both basketball and volleyball as a youth. In the 10th grade, he had a growth spurt of 9 inches, but he continued playing the ‘small-guy’ positions in both sports (point guard and libero), which he credits with establishing great coordination.
This is Tillie’s senior season with UC Irvine, but it’s also just his second season. Tillie transferred to UC Irvine from a school in Canada called Thompson Rivers University. He went there in the first place because of a French transfer process he described as “complicated.” He intended to come to the US straight away — his first choice was in fact BYU — but was deemed ineligible at his first opportunity.
He was the clear best player on the TRU Wolfpack team, being named CIS (Canadian Interuniversity Sport…basically the equivalent of the NCAA) Rookie of the Year in 2010 and second-team all-CIS his sophomore year — the only first or second-year player to be so named. But for as successful as Tillie himself was while in Canada, his team really weren’t, as they were quickly eliminated in the first round of the postseason both of his years there.
Laurent Tillie had coached a player at TRU who was in turn acquainted with then-UC Irvine head coach John Speraw, which paved the way for Kevin to move stateside. Tillie visited the campus, corresponded with Speraw regularly, and quickly committed to joining the Anteaters once eligible at the beginning of last season. It seems he missed the beach as much as anything, which sort of makes his initial interest in BYU a head-scratcher. Speraw, for his part, recalls first taking an extended look at Tillie as a way to pass time while snowed in after a match with Penn State.
But oh, what an impact he had. He and BYU’s Taylor Sander are the only players in 2013 who return after having been 2012 First Team All-Americans. Tillie ranked third nationally in 2012 with his .397 attack percentage, while also proving no worse than solid at pretty much all facets of the game with 1.71 digs, .62 blocks, and .24 aces per set. He recorded double-figures in kills in 20 of UC Irvine’s matches.
The Anteaters finished fourth in the hotly contested MPSF in 2012, which meant they hosted their first-round MPSF Tournament match but would have to go on the road for the semifinals unless the lowest seed turned an unlikely upset. The Anteaters defeated UCLA in four sets, ending the legendary coaching career of Al Scates, in the first round to advance. Tillie led the way with 20 kills. They then fell behind two sets to nil to USC in the semifinals, but rallied to win that match. They likewise fell behind 0-2 to Stanford, in a match held on neutral ground (UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion), but behind Tillie’s career-high 24 kills, they came back to win that match as well. And in an NCAA final that smacked of foreshadowing, the Anteaters again faced USC at the Galen Center, as they had in the MPSF semifinals. This time, no heroics were necessary, as UC Irvine set the Men of Troy aside in three to win their third national title, all since 2007. Talk about a program on the rise.
Tillie had designs on joining the French national team ahead of the 2012 London Olympics, but France didn’t actually qualify a single soul in volleyball for the 2012 Games. The men’s national team didn’t make it, nor did the women, nor did any beach duo on either side.
It’s perhaps a small wonder that he remained for his senior season. The coach that had drawn him to UC Irvine left for a different job, and there’s little doubt that he can be a star playing the sport professionally in Europe. There certainly was some surprise expressed among fans when he came back. But Tillie has said that the Anteaters’ new head coach, David Kniffin, having been a previous assistant to Speraw at UCI, made the transition easy and even enjoyable. Called ‘Air France,’ Tillie is now the surefire leader of what, even in what appears to be a wide-open season, must be considered the top favorites for this year’s national championship.
Tillie has also dabbled in beach volleyball. Back in 2011, Tillie and former UC Irvine player Will Montgomery played one stop of the National Volleyball League tour, a circuit I must admit I’d never heard of before but seems to occasionally be a big deal. Out of 46 teams present, they finished tied on ninth rank, which isn’t bad at all for a first tournament. He’s also played some 6-man forms of beach volleyball, which obviously don’t have the same professional presence as 2-man. Couldn’t say which path he’s more likely to take. There’s potentially more money to be had on the beach, and he’s said he likes the beach, but playing indoor is probably the safer choice as beach volleyball players don’t exactly earn a salary.
And of course, as most international collegiate players (and a few Americans) have, Tillie has suited up for flag and country playing indoors, too. He’s seen time with the French junior national team. Every athlete, to some degree or another, dreams of playing in the Olympic Games, but I don’t know if France’s senior national team is in good enough shape for Tillie to expect to show up in Rio.
That’s surely putting the cart before the horse, though. A scintillating 2013 collegiate season remains for Tillie and his Anteaters, even though they’ve had a few bad steps at this point. It doesn’t look like anyone’s gonna run away with it, so Irvine are as likely as anyone to be to be on the court slamming home the final ball of the 2013 season. And if the Anteaters make it that far, it’ll be ‘Air France’ leading the way in strength.
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