Headline: Knigge ‘18 wins Gold with Team USA 

Author: Nick Villamil 

On Sept. 22, the United States defeated Canada in the gold-medal match at the NORCECA Final Six’s men’s volleyball tournament. 

In matches against North America’s best, the US was thoroughly dominant, dropping only a single set and allowing Canada no higher than 21 points in any of the sets of their 3-0 gold-medal match sweep. 

Leading the Americans was middle blocker Patrick Gasman, who was named the tournament’s most valuable player and won a national championship with the University of Hawaii in 2021, as well as outside hitter Ethan Champlain and setter Andrew Rowan, UCLA standouts fresh off a national championship of their own last spring. 

From top to bottom, the US roster was lined with current players and alums of the most prestigious collegiate volleyball programs who have been in the national team pipeline since their high school years. 

Except for one: Matt Knigge ’18, who started every match at the other middle blocker position, opposite Gasman. 

Knigge was a three-time First Team All-American and a two-time United Volleyball Conference player of the year with the Vassar Men’s Volleyball team, but he never thought he would be a gold medalist with Team USA. 

He did not even plan to be a professional volleyball player, which he is in sixth season as, now playing with a top German team that also competes in the European Champions League. 

After a decorated collegiate career at the Division III level, Knigge, an International Studies and Russian major who studied abroad in St. Petersburg, had a Fulbright Scholarship lined up to study Russian-Ukrainian Energy Relations and Politics in Ukraine upon graduation. That changed only a few weeks before graduation, when Knigge received the news that changes in the State Department’s education budget had cut the position he was set to take. 

Since then, Knigge has been on a journey that he could not have conceived as the inexperienced volleyball player he was when he first arrived at Kenyon Hall. He did not even anticipate it as a decorated collegiate athlete.

“Six years down the line, I’m so far away from where I thought my life was going to take me when I was up in Poughkeepsie wondering what I was going to do,” Knigge told The Miscellany News. 

Richard Gary was hired as Vassar’s men’s volleyball head coach ahead of Knigge’s junior year, and while he saw immense potential for growth in Knigge’s game, Gary also could not have predicted Knigge becoming the international champion he is today. 

“I don’t think anybody can know if they’re good enough to play professionally coming out of the Division III college setting,” Gary, now in his eighth season as Vassar’s head coach, told The Miscellany News. “Matt’s defining factor was that any bar you put in front of him, he would eventually jump over it. I honestly think if you put him in a group of eight footers, he would somehow grow to eight feet because he just always adapts to whatever the competitive environment around him is.” 

Vassar Career 

Knigge’s unlikely journey traces back to his hometown of New Egypt, New Jersey, where he was a standout baseball player and first picked up volleyball at backyard family parties with his aunt and uncle, who were volleyball players themselves. When he was 14, Knigge suffered a serious elbow injury and decided to focus on volleyball. 

In New Jersey, however, such a decision can be difficult to execute. Boy’s volleyball was not sponsored at Knigge’s high school and travel volleyball options were sparse throughout the state. “When I told my parents I wanted to play volleyball seriously, they had no idea where to find a place for me to play,” he said. 

The Knigge’s eventually settled on a boy’s volleyball club two hours north of their home, where Matt attended practice weekly. Still, the long commute made practice time sparse, and Knigge says he felt like he barely got to practice volleyball as he began to speak with college coaches. 

“I was not a good volleyball player when my recruiting process started,” Knigge admitted. “I was trying to convince big schools like Harvard and Princeton to take me because I believed I was a good athlete who just needed coaching, which of course, was not a pitch they wanted to hear.” 

Knigge’s decision ultimately came down to Vassar and NYU. Once enrolled at Vassar, he finally had consistent access to the resources that allowed him to grow as a volleyball player. 

The greatest, and newest, resource at the time for Knigge was that he was finally in a volleyball gym full of players who were, if not better than him, at least far more technically trained and

experienced. He says he learned early on at Vassar not only through the high volume of play that a full season as a starting middle blocker allowed him, but also by constantly asking his teammates questions about why they were choosing to do certain things on the court. Knigge says he continues this practice today, even as one of the best middle blockers in the United States. 

His first year at Vassar was also transformational thanks to the varsity weight room, which helped him add nearly 40 pounds of muscle. “There is a pretty stark difference between freshman year and then sophomore year and onwards for me. I went from being a pretty mediocre player to being an All-American by the time my sophomore year was over.” 

When Gary arrived at Vassar after his first All-American season, Knigge says he finally received training in the technical aspects of volleyball that he was still lacking. “Richard was one of the first people to tell me that I could be much better than I was at the time and also guide me through that,” Knigge remembers. 

From Gary’s perspective, he saw an athlete that was taking to his coaching faster than anybody else and flashing signs of excellence as both an attacker and a blocker. 

In volleyball, the accuracy of a set a player receives is typically telling of how their attack will result. Gary recalls how this wasn’t really the case for Knigge. Regardless of where the set took him, Knigge adjusted. And when the defense changed their positioning to try and stop him, he would follow suit by directing his attacks to the newly opened spaces, even if they were more difficult shots to hit, Gary said. 

Most important for a middle blocker, is as the position’s name suggests, blocking. In the blocking training he implemented, Gary says Knigge “took to it like a sponge and was a total natural.” 

By the time Knigge played his final match at Kenyon Hall, he was as decorated as any Vassar athlete ever. His time as a Brewer culminated in two more All-American selections, two conference player of the year awards and the team’s first Final Four appearance since 2008. 

An Unexpected Professional Journey 

When he signed his first professional contract, Knigge did not plan on making a career out of volleyball. All he wanted was to find a job in Europe that would allow him to travel easily and give him time to decide what his next “real job,” as he put it, would be. 

But after a few months in the second division of the German league, Knigge made his potential apparent just as he had at Vassar. This time, Knigge caught the attention of two veteran Polish

volleyball players. Fluent in Russian, Knigge was able to communicate with them better than with any German speaker. “Near the end of the season, they pulled me aside and told me that I could be much better than I realized. They told me I should keep playing for at least one more year” Knigge, who at the time was ramping up his job search in the US, remembers. 

They connected Knigge with a former Spanish teammate of theirs, who had recently retired and become an agent. With a new agent, Knigge signed to play his second season of professional volleyball in Spain’s top league. 

He has not looked back since. 

In four seasons in the Spanish league, Knigge emerged as the league’s best middle blocker. When it came time for an ambitious and well-financed Spanish club to create a “super-team” with the league’s best players, Knigge was one of the middle blockers signed. 

As he flourished, Knigge found himself facing off against other top American middles who were starring for team’s in other professional leagues. Consistently, Knigge held his own, and even often got the best of whichever American middle was on the opposing side of the net. 

By now, there was no question that Knigge belonged in any conversation about top American middles. Still, the invitation to the train with the US National Team never came. 

Knigge says he felt slighted, but was also not surprised. 

After all, why would the national team call a guy who nobody knew of in high school? Why would they call a former Division III player? 

Knigge explained this to a friend in California, also a volleyball player, during the summer of 2022. As Knigge laid out his theory, his friend laughed more with every word Knigge spoke. 

“I was starting to get pissed off. I was like ‘what’s the deal, man?’ ” Knigge said. 

“He told me, ‘unless you’re the best player in the United States, they’re not calling you. You have to reach out to them.’” 

So Knigge did. He shared his film, his stats, and his resume of accolades—all of which showed the National Team that he belonged among the thirty or so best players in the United States. 

The US coaches agreed and invited Knigge to practice in the National Team gym.

From there, though, nothing else was guaranteed. Knigge would have to prove himself in a field rich with middle blockers that were expected to be better than him. 

So, he did as he always has. He found a way to conquer his newest challenge. He jumped over the latest, highest bar. He grew to the metaphorical eight feet when placed in competition with literal and figurative giants of the sport. 

The rest is a history that is still being written, one Knigge is writing as a trailblazer for underestimated and late-developing athletes everywhere.

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