Athletics are supposed to be a productive outlet where kids can blow off steam. While it’s also a great source of exercise, a way to make and keep close friends, and it teaches valuable life lessons, everyone knows that athletics’ number 1 function is to encourage kids to go completely insane with no repercussions.
For me, it was volleyball. It was my outlet from fourth to twelfth grade. It gave me confidence while instilling in me a sense of community and pride in my team and my town. Volleyball taught me that no matter how many times you try and fail, you always have to get back up. My teammates were my friends. My coaches were like parents from the time season started until it ended. It was my escape, my happy place, and right when I needed it the most, it was taken from me.
Since my freshman year, my high school has not had a steady volleyball program. My team was used to adjusting to new coaches and their policies. We had the same head coach my freshman and sophomore year and a new head coach for both my junior and senior year. A program having three different head coaches in the course of four years is very unusual, but by the time senior year started, the team figured that it would be pretty routine. Unfortunately, we were wrong.
Our new coach was the first male coach we had ever had for a high school volleyball season. He reffed volleyball and had coached many local travel teams along with a couple of high school teams in the area. He must have looked great on paper and with the previous coach leaving us a month before the start of our season, I can imagine the relief the hiring staff must have felt when they finally found who they thought would be a qualified person to run our program. That being said, it was the worst season of volleyball that I have ever played.
Not only was our new coach unqualified, it seemed that he had no intention of trying to be. Most experienced coaches would come into a new program and dedicate time to learning about their players to fully understand their tendencies and their relationship with the other team members. Not him. He walked into our gym and acted like he already knew who we were and how we played. After assuming that he knew us, he threatened our playing time and pinned us against each other to the point that we were all trying to out-do one another rather than help each other. While there is and should be a level of competition between teammates, especially at the varsity level, the fact that everyone can work and play together is much more important and may even be the most important aspect of becoming a successful volleyball team. Our team had the best chemistry and we were all very well acquainted with how each other played and how to win as a team, so when he challenged this understanding, it tore us apart. Additionally, he was out of the gym during practice more often than he was there, leaving our captains in charge rather than giving them the opportunity to learn and practice with their team.
Along with his terrible approach, he was often rude, immature, and just plain mean, but if I tried to explain all that he did, this article would never end.
It didn’t take long for us to realize that we played much better when we didn’t listen to him. We often came together in the locker room before a game and reminded each other not to let our own coach get in our head. Many times during games, after he would criticize a teammate, we told each other not to listen to coach and rely on what we already knew.
Needless to say, our season didn’t go well. While we technically tied for first place in our conference, we never felt that we played as well as we could have. Senior night passed with little emotion as no one would miss the season as much as we should if we would have had a different coach. When our last game finally ended, tears fell because we knew that we could have been continuing much further into post-season but because we were all unhappy, we couldn't even win the first game.
At the end of the season, the coach is supposed to hand out coach evaluations to each member of the team and give them to the athletic director without reading what they say. It was no surprise that he didn’t plan to give us these evaluations, so we played it old school and wrote them ourselves, desperate to get him fired. Each player’s evaluation varied in length from one paragraph to three pages but all fourteen had the same main point; Volleyball sucked.
By some act from hell, the coach was hired for a second year. While this shouldn’t affect the players who graduated at all, I have never felt more sympathy for a group of people before in my life.
Roughly a year later, I returned home for the weekend and went to watch my old team play. While waiting for one of my friends to arrive, I sat down with a couple of parents and chatted with them about the season. They informed me that despite all odds, this season was even worse than last year. None of the players were happy and their record showed it. The team is very talented, but as I watched each play go by, I realized that they virtually had no coach. Even when the other team went on an 8 point run, he did nothing to help the team win back the points or their confidence.
When I left that night, I texted a girl on the team and told her that they should still be proud regardless of what the coach told them. She and another player were soon telling me how terrible the season was and how they could hardly leave practice or a game without crying. The thought that a sport that these girls loved had now turned into a nightmare made me want to scream, but I knew there was nothing I could do to help them besides tell them that the season would be over soon and once it ended, none of it mattered.
Just a few days later, I was informed that the coach had been suspended for two days due to an e-mail that was sent to the athletic director by a player. It included quotes from the coach along with specific dates and situations as well as an all around report of how the girls felt toward him and volleyball as a whole. The athletic director called several players to the office to discuss the issue and finally suspended the coach. He informed the girls that all he could tell them was of the suspension and nothing more.
I kept up with the score of their game the next day as one of the players told me that they needed to win to prove that they could play better without him ruining their game. At one point, the score was 16 to 0 with our team winning. I was smiling all the way from Chicago.
Now it is official that he is gone and the sophomore coach, who is amazing, is the new head of the program. While I’m not on the team anymore, I could not be happier for the girls who are. They can finally enjoy the sport they love.
