THE FIRST time Leila Barros held a volleyball, she knew immediately that volleyball was her game.
The Brazilian star, who powered Brazil to a rare 3-0 sweep of the just
ended World Women Volleyball Grand Prix that also featured Cuba, Italy
and South Korea, was a picture of blissful innocence just hours after the
tournament ended at the PhilSports Arena. She was likewise oozing with
sensuality.
In a rare interview she granted this writer in the din of the Sunday night celebration at the Century Park Hotel in the company of, among others, Century Park general manager Bobby Carpio, Pava's Tony Boy Liao, Col. Sergs Austria of the Security Committee, Bulletin's Ding Marcelo, Pava Chair Benny Gopez and San Juan Mayor and Grand Prix Organizing Committee Chair Jinggoy Estrada, Leila Barros, voted as the tournament's Most Popular Player and Best Attacker, gave a mouthful bordering from her stardom to "wifedom." She came with an interpreter as she could only speak Portuguese.
Tigerish image
Suddenly, she was abloom this evening, a complete transformation from the tigerish image that she conveys on court to a soft, caressable, if not embraceable, pussycat off court. Her "pouty" lips had a blush of lipstick, natural.
"I was 15," she said, "when volleyball was introduced to me. Someone handed me a volleyball and, immediately, the feel of the volleyball gave me this strange feeling that the game was for me. After that experience, I never had any seconds thoughts that it was the game for me."
Just four years later, in 1991, the teener bloomed to a 5-foot-8 of a looker. She is possessed of a whistle-bait figure that hides a power that eternally strikes fear on the enemy during every game. She has a face of a near-Roman goddess, a nose so well-chiseled, lips so full and lusciously innocent that Brooke Shields would suddenly look like a poor imitation if placed beside her.
But underneath that facade resides a cache of bombs that would explode during a volleyball game in staccato fashion, in varying styles and crescendos. A southpaw, Leila can blast you with a spike detonated with the full might of a TNT, or a hang-time smother delivered so gracefully a la Michael Jordan.
Since 1991, just four years since she picked up Brazil's No. 2 game after football, Leila has become a permanent cog of the Brazil National Volleyball Team [sic]. Her stature with the team has grown to legendary proportions that seeing the Brazilian Team without Leila Barros is like seeing the Chicago Bulls without Michael Jordan.
"I always have a big fan following wherever I go," Leila said. "In Malaysia,
in Taipei, everywhere, in the Olympics of Barcelona and Atlanta. But here
in Manila, it's different. The adulation is simply terrific. Adorable!"
Leila looks up to Ana Moser, the 6-foot-4 captain of Brazil, as the "person that I idolize most. She can overcome both physical and mental problems. Ana's leadership is something I admire."
One streamer that was eternally raised by a male fan during every game that Brazil played in during the just-ended World Women Volleyball Grand Prix read: "Leila, will you marry me?"
Second smallest
To that, Leila said: "Oh, that. Good thing my husband was not here. He'd go after that guy!"
Leila, 27, who was born in Brasilia 1,500 km from Sao Paulo, is the second smallest from the Brazilian side that teems with six-footers and above. But she is the team's strongest leaper, inch for inch.
"I don't know where I got it (leaping ability)," she said. "But I guess it's a gift of God. And I developed it through hours and hours of practice."
Saying "there's no shortcut to success," Leila's advice to aspiring volleyball players is, "Hard work, hard work and more hard work. There is no substitute to hard work."
To prove her point, she said she practices "from six to eight hours a day."
She's been married three years. But she has remained childless.
"By choice," she said. "I hope to be still around for four more years. Next, I'll put up my cosmetology clinic as my form of business. And then I'll have my children."
How many?
"Just two," she said. "Hopefully, a boy and a girl."
If given the chance, will she come back to Manila?
"Definitely," she said. "I
love it here."
Text adapted from The Philippine Daily Inquirer, August 24, 1999