An interview with Carlo Devoti


Carlo Devoti was one of the very first high level Italian volleyball players who managed to combine great athletic and technical skills with a fine sporting physique.
As a master of all the basic skills, he had a long professional career. This was followed by an equally long career as a coach, during which he managed to combine the roles of  trainer and teacher.

View Carlo Devoti's complete CURRICULUM VITAE »

• Date and place of birth: Ponte dell’Olio (PC) 14/05/1946
  

• Current occupation: Retired CONI sports teacher.
  
  
• Favourite or most used nickname: Picchio ( woodpecker)
  
  
• How were you introduced to volleyball? At school and in the parish youth group.
  
  
• Is there anyone that you feel you owe your success at volleyball to? Don Aldo Corbelletta (former curate at Corpus Domini parish in Piacenza) and Prof. Joseph Kozak (from Prague, former coach of the Italian national volleyball team)
  
  
• What was your sporting ambition when you were young?  My dream came true: playing for the Italian national team.
  
  
• What is your current dream for sport? To see the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport stamped out. I would also like to see sport return to the people who developed it.  This means getting rid of the all those unseen people who are debasing and de-humanising sport for their own gain.
  
  
• How do you think your life would have been different if you hadn’t got involved with volleyball? I would have taken up athletics.  That was my real dream when I was young but I had to give it up when I decided to play volleyball.
  
  
• Who was the sportsperson that inspired you most in your youth? Valery Brummel, a former Russian high jump record holder (2.28m) and Abebe Bikila, an Ethiopian, who won the marathon at the Rome Olympics.
  
  
• Who is the volleyball player you admire most? Joseph Musil, because he is still playing at over 70, and enjoying himself as much as when he was young.
  
• Which is your favourite sports team – football or other?  I only admire teams that win by using their own skills and by working together and that don’t rely on buying in expensive players. As I can’t see any teams like this currently, I do not have a favourite.
  
  
• Who do you consider your best friend in the volleyball community? Everyone that I have played and had fun with on both sides of the net. I have gained something important from each of them, so I feel I am their friend and I am grateful to each one of them.
  
  
• Which is the best volleyball match that you have seen or taken part in? DDR-Bulgaria won by the DDR  3 - 2 after Bulgaria had been leading the fifth set by 13 to 2. That match helped me capture the essence of the game and taught me many things.
  
  
• Which is your best memory about volleyball? The best memories are all to do with teaching youngsters.  I hope that I have taught them to think in  a truly sporting way  as well as to achieve good athletic results. I also aimed  to show them that sport can be a good companion for life, if you respect it.
  
  
• The best volleyball team you have ever seen? The 1978 Soviet Union team.
  
  
• What would your dream team be? Setter: Gosiniak (Polish, but I’m not sure about the spelling), Savine and Kravchenko (Russian, middle blockers), Svoboda (Czechoslovakia’s opposite hitter), Buzek (Hungarian, area 4) and Schuman ( DDR, area 4). I have chosen these players not only for their playing skills but also because I appreciate their moral qualities.
  
• Can you tell me about an interesting episode from your volleyball experience?  When  I was 16 and I  fractured my tibia and fibula throwing the discus. I then took part in a match with my team, called at the time Libertas Corpus Domini Piacenza, without my parents knowing. To  do this I had to remove my plaster after only 30 days instead of 45, as the doctor had said. This shows how important sport, and volleyball in particular, was for me in my childhood.
  
  

Carlo Devoti, Roberto Costaldi, Giampiero Aquino, Felice Baldini, all from Piacenza, at the Scuola Centrale dello Sport (Central Sport School) of Rome in 1969.

The group of students from the first course at the Scuola Centrale dello Sport of Rome in Acqua Acetosa.

In action during the 70s in Turin.

The winning Italian national team at the 1970 Turin Universiade.

The formation of the winning Italian national team at the 1970 Turin Universiade.

The Turin Universiade.

Teaching pupils at  the Martiri di Cefalonia School, Parma.