Hey Monarch nation. This is Aaron from the monarchist podcast, Mike and I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone from listen. In the coming weeks, we have some awesome football content in store for everyone during the next month, we'll chat with Andy bidder, Virginia tech beat reporter Steven NIGO from hoist the colors to help us preview O ECU UVA, beat writer, Greg Madea, and Kara Richie of 95.3, the ticket radio, and host of Wolf house. Following Arkansas state.
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Hi, I'm Phil Steele and you're listening to the monarchist podcast.
podcast
I'm Aaron.
And I'm Mike,
And you're listening to monarch's podcast today. We welcome coach Fred chat of the show. Fred played volleyball at Pepperdine at George Mason, and has more than 20 years of coaching experience at the division one level in 2019. Fred joined Monarch nation and is the architect who is building ODU volleyball. What's shaking coach.
lots, lots shaken, but having a good time with it. Preseason is here. We we're and the, and the team's crushing it. Couldn't be more pleased.
Happy to hear that and welcome to the show coach. So you're under your third year at ODU. Third year as program. If you had to describe the ODU volleyball program to someone, how would you describe it?
I would describe it as the team. You have to look out for the team you have to watch out for. I think the peers that I've known for a while they know this, but I think you know, the, the ones that don't know our staff's history, my history who don't know ODU they're going to be taken by surprise
Man, you, you have peaked my interest. I was already excited to come check out games, but now, now I'm like, I don't know. kind of hype
yeah, I'm excited. I mean, we've put so much work in and yeah, I mean, I, I know, I know there's there. There's questions you're gonna want to get to, and I don't wanna just ramble on, so I'll just, I'll be patient and I'm sure we'll get to it when we get to it.
Okay. Sounds good. I know we've talked a couple times, you know, at the bud and different sort of things. But we definitely wanna make sure that Monarch nation gets all this great stuff. Before you joined the Monarch, you were coaching at duke, Virginia tech and George Mason for quite some time. What did you learn along the way that formed a basis for how you wanted to construct this program at old dominion?
Oh yeah. So much being, being at Mason, it was kind of my own private lab. You know, we didn't, we didn't have a lot of resources to put into the men's program and, and, and that's just the nature of men's volleyball, but they left me alone, you know, and we, we, we had success, so they were happy with what we were doing. And so I got to try. Different things. I got to try different systems.
I've got to play around to see, you know, what worked, what didn't work just from a volleyball playing model. I also had the opportunity through, through the, the, the men's programs there to make connections with really high level coaches and coaches that are that coach the national team. My mentor coached national team in great Britain and to, to, to maintain relationships and develop relationships. There was just huge.
And I, I think finally getting a master's at Mason and formalizing some of the ideas and, and the components of educational psychology that I thought were really important that gave me some formal research based background to, to really develop best practices going to Virginia tech taught me really about, or organizing a staff because I didn't really have a staff. At Mason.
So Chris Riley, as a head coach at Virginia tech, you know, he, he, he showed me what balance looked like running a program and having a family. When I got to duke Jolie Nagle, you taught me really how to kind of keep pushing, you know, not to be complacent at what you've accomplished before, but to, to keep pushing, keep exploring what's. What's good. And, and I think there's, there's just so much a, a and a depth of experience that I was fortunate enough to get along the way.
So coach, it sounds like you have some awesome mentors in your time. And you talked about your time, ed, the, you compare contrast the differences, men and volleyball.
Yeah, in my experience, you know, there, if you, if you kind of run the bell curve of motivation between, you know, just however you wanna slice up motivation and what motivates players, I think there's a, they all are motivated by similar things. Some of them are motivated to learn. Some of them are motivated to, to be the best. Some of them are motivated to be better than you. So, you know, we, we, I like to look at it as the, the model of, of learning and mastery.
And then whether someone's actually trying to learn themselves or someone's actually just trying to prove mastery, or someone's trying to not be worse than they were before, or someone's trying not to lose their learning. So there's, there's four compartments there and they all the men and women both share the same. It's just the curve might shift between one, you know, between males and the females.
But on the whole, in my experience, I have found that the, the men I've coached they need to play well to feel good. And the women that I've coached, they need to feel good to play well. And for me, that makes coaching on the women's side, more engaging, because I can have a little bit more of an influence on their mentality at the moment or their, their emotions at the moment, and then get them to perform again.
A lot of times with the guys, when they started playing bad, it's like, all right, sub go stay at the end of the bench. I'll talk to you later. And cuz they can't, can't get them out of it as easily.
That's really interest. A, a quick follow up to that, obviously in, you know, most sports fans can make a difference and you guys have a, well, we'll talk a little bit about the facility later, but so obviously something that's important to you is making sure that the ladies on your squad are feeling good, so they can play to the best of their ability. How about fans? How about Monarch nation?
What can, what can fans do that can connect with the ladies to help put them in that their best frame of mind so they can perform to the best of their.
Yeah, any way that they can, they can loudly show their appreciation for their efforts. That that makes a huge difference. You know, we are still, we've only had one calendar year worth of competition. So I think our fans, many of our fans are still trying to figure out what traditions to bring into the. But we have had a blast with, with the fans that have come in so far, you know, we've, we've met at the bud and part of it is the baseball team has come and supported us.
And, you know, they're some of the most rowdy and rambunctious fans we have in the gym. The, the band comes not the entire band, but they, they come and they show up and they are loud. They play great music. They get the whole gym rocking you know, a lot, a lot of the other sports come, the tennis team. They all, I rely on them for our challenge reviews, where I'm not sure if the ball was in or out, the official makes a call and I'm considering challenging or not.
The tennis team sits in the bleachers and they help me out because they see the ball hitting the line or not hitting the line. And they'll, they'll say, no, that was in, or no, that was out coach. And I'll be like, okay, I'm gonna challenge or I'm not gonna challenge. So it becomes this whole, you know, engaging process with the fans and, and the community is awesome. There's just so much volleyball in this area. So when they come, they appreciate good volleyball.
And I, you can't ask for more than that, you know, there's, there's a great mix of fans who support ODU because it's ODU. And then there's fans that support volleyball because it's good volleyball. And then there's the fans that support both that ODU is playing good volleyball.
That's awesome. Well, if I, I guess if you're gonna have student athletes on campus to help you with challenging, the tennis teams would be the ones that would be the, the most accurate of being able to catch quick flying objects at small lines.
Exactly.
All right. So before you accepted the job at ODU, you spent four years at the P five level. What was attractive to you about old dominion that motivated you to become a Moar.
Yeah. I, I think the commitment level to the volleyball program I was convinced was going to be better than most, at least most that I'm familiar with at the P five level. Yes, of course you are going to have the P five teams that have everything, you know, they, they it's, they're, they're providing things that you can't even fathom, but you also have teams at the P five level that that commitment to their program is not, not up to par. And so when I learned.
What the commitment was going to be from the administration to the volleyball program. And knowing the history of, of the familiarity from being up at Mason and knowing the brand of old dominion and old dominion athletics. It was, I mean, I mean that all of that was hugely attractive. And then coming to the interview meeting, former president Brodrick and, and wood and Carolyn Crutchfield, who's our sport administrator. You could just feel how excited they were.
And then everybody I met along the way with Jenna Berger was Jenna Virga was on our side for, from OD and was prepared to do whatever she could to help. And it's just the army of people that stepped up and said, we will be here for you. And for, since I've been here, it, all of that has held drew and then some.
So me and Aaron are big fans of Jenna. And I also noted you, you just talked about how the teams come out and support you guys. I know that's been picking up more and more the past few years and it's, it's been great to see all the different teams at all the different events. So I hope that continues this year and keeps building.
Yeah. I, I mean, I, I'm sorry. Sorry to interrupt, but I mean, credit to our players too, when we had the non-competitive year in 1920, they just said we're going to everything So the players that were here went to all the other sports events and, and coach Andrew Griffith. And I, we decided that we were going to room the volleyball players with the fuel hockey players. So. Early on in the recruiting process, we didn't have anybody to host. We didn't have anybody to say to show them around ODU.
We didn't have anybody. We didn't know any, our staff didn't know any what to show them. So a field hockey team really stepped up and said, we'll take them, we'll host them, we'll show them around. So then we decided that next year that we would room a volleyball player in a and a field hockey player together. So they quickly became closer. And then, you know, some of them still live together off campus now.
I mean that, and that's contagious. I mean, the. So we've seen no matter what the sports are, tennis, basketball, we see players at all that stuff. And the coaches as well. I mean, we noticed right when, when coach Ronnie got here, he was popping up everywhere. And I think when coaches start to do that, and we see you at the bud, we see you at the bud frequently. We see coach Ronnie's assistant at the bud. Jeff Jones is out there at different places.
The administrators, it, it, you know, it gets people, it makes it easier. It almost like makes you want to go to support the other teams cuz you know, they've got your back.
Absolutely. We just had an inner spot scrimmage yesterday and coach Alicia stopped in. She said, oh, I heard you guys are scrimmaging. I just wanted to check it out. And how awesome is that?
That's great. And I love it and it, honestly, when I see it, it makes me wanna go to more events, to show more support, to be a better fan. Cause we've got coaches that are being better fans than some of the fans. So so in 2019 you took the helm of the program. And essentially you were given the ability to become the architect of the OG volleyball program. When you were pitching yourself to the administration, what did your plan look like? And how much has it changed since taking over.
Some aspects of it haven't changed at all. I tried to convey more who I was and what I felt my purpose would be as a coach, you know, to really develop a program that had good values, that developed excellence that represented the university well that built pride, you know, that didn't just, you know, take it for granted, you know? So I think a lot of that has, has, has still stood. I think some of the stuff has just been thrown out the door.
like, you know, you have some scholarships to work with and you're like, okay, I'm gonna have this many in this class and this many in this class and this many, and I'm gonna get some transfers and I'm gonna build it like this, and it's gonna, it's gonna look all great. Yeah. That was all a train wreck because you're like, okay, Here's a player that will help us. Oh, here's another player in the same class that will help us. Well, this player's in the same class too.
Well, we're gonna need her too. And here's so then we ended up with just at some point I, I, I realized that I wasn't going to get any external pressure to win right away. So I just went ahead and built it much more sound than if I had the pressure to have to win right away and forego all of the other stuff that really matters in the long run.
So you mentioned transfers in there. Our listeners are gonna be mostly fans of basketball, football, you know, the major sports and they're well aware of how big the transfer portal is becoming in college athletics. Is that happening in volleyball now, too?
It probably is one of the largest transfer populations is volleyball because they. So early, you're getting when I was at Virginia tech and duke, I was recruiting players that I never actually coached cuz when I left two years later after those, they still hadn't come in. so yeah, I, I just think the, the recruiting is really tough for the, the young student athletes.
It's, it's tough for the coaches to project and you know, you're not getting it right all the time, either of us, either the student athletes or us. So, you know, the transfer portal becomes a very, very big thing.
So let's switch gears just a little bit here last year, first full season conference USA, obviously a whole nother world right now. Now we've moved to the Sunbelt with the move of conferences. Should fans expect to see significant changes than what they may have seen last?
Hard to say, because we haven't played against these teams in the Sunbelt. I, we, we did play app state last fall. And some of the, you know, with Marshall coming in as being part of the Sunbelt, we're familiar with them. It's hard to say. I think the level will still be high. I mean, it will be at least as high. The, the only difference will be the absence of Western, Kentucky and rice who are both top 20 top 25 programs.
And, you know, they it's taken them a, a long time with the same coach to get to that level. And I would say our athletic director would had a lot to do with Western Kentucky's success back when he was the ad there. So. I, but I think there's a group of teams in the Sunbelt that are higher level than that, that next group of teams in conference USA. And so I think the fans will see really familiar names competing at a high level and really making for entertaining volleyball in our gym.
That's exciting. I know I'm stoked about the Sunbelt, but we briefly touched on transfers and recruiting. It's clear with your recruiting and the roster where these, these women are from that you cast a pretty wide net. When it comes to recruiting, you got locals, you got some girls from the Northeast, others from throughout the country, and you got some foreign born players. How does your recruiting process work?
How do you identify these women and what attributes are you looking for in an athlete to fit your program?
Yeah, there's, there's an influx of, of emails and players reaching out. And some of it is, is really authentic and genuine and gen and generated by those young student athletes. But a lot of it is not a lot of it is generated by these companies. Now that these services that kind of take on the communication role for these student athletes. If you go purely through that, you may stumble upon somebody that works out for you.
I, I will tend to rely on the relationships that have been built over the past 20 some odd years. You know, a lot of the players that I've coached or have coached against back when I was at Mason are now. Coaching on the women's side and they're coaching high level clubs. So it's, those are their, especially early on.
Those are the people that I reached out to and not being able to really sell anything to the, the, the recruits, the recruiting coordinators and these, these club coaches were able to say, I know there's, there's nothing there yet, but I know Fred, I know Becca, I know Adam, you know, people on my staff, you are going to be in a good place. And so that, that got us step to a level very quickly. The, even the foreign athletes are through a former player on the women's side at Mason.
And so I think it just, sometimes it just pays off to, be old in this profession.
That's all part about our relationship building, right. And maintaining those relationships. So as we've done this podcast, we realize that's more and more important in coaching than I think many fans would ever thought.
I, I probably didn't finish answering your question, you know, what do I look for? You know, yeah. You look for the obvious physical qualities, you look for speed agility, a a Twitch to them. Some, someone who could generate power, someone who's dynamic, but everybody's looking for that. Right.
So how do we separate ourselves and, and what, what is separating our recruits and it, yes, there's the cliche of character, but you don't know that you, you, you can't know the character until it's been tested. And like I said, sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. So really I'm just trying. Go back to those people that I have relationships with and say, okay, gimme the real scoop. What is she like on a day to day basis? What is she like when you're not winning?
What is she like has, and I'll ask them as the, the recruits as well. Have you ever been cut from anything and how did you handle it? Anybody ever tell you you're not good enough. And how did you bounce back from that? Really trying to get some some real answers to some scenarios that they can't skirt around and say, no, I, I, you know, I work hard. I, I, you know, I, I bring this, I bring that, you know, well, what did you bring when this happened?
And, personality is big too, you know, when they come on their visits, is this someone I can actually talk to? Is it someone, the beauty of our team right now is that I really enjoy coaching every single one of them, you know, it makes. It makes the gym just so positive, so energetic, just because we can all walk in and say, I really look forward to seeing you, and then we're gonna work hard and we're gonna do this together.
I think early on, it was a little polarizing with the recruits cuz some of them said, well, I wanna be part of a really strong culture or I wanna be part of winning a program. And, and I, well, I can't give you that.
Then I turn around and say, well, I'm looking for athletes, student athletes, people who have a self, a sense of themselves that will bring that and want to pursue excellence for themselves because how you handle every moment, how you handle yourselves on a day to day basis is going to be our culture.
So you've talked to these recruits. You, think they're a fit that you think they have the right skills to the program and then you're to offer them scholarship that is selling, or you already know they're.
No, I don't. No. Because probably have three or four other offers as well. I think the best we can do is bring them along on a, on a daily journey with us and not pretend to be anything we're not because that that'll get you in trouble in the long run, cuz, and, and hopefully they're not somebody that they're not, and you want them to spend time alone with the team and, and have that dialogue.
And we'll rely on the feedback from the players as well to say, well, she was on her phone the whole time. I don't care how good you are if you can't, if you can't be a good teammate, if you can't relate to the people that you're, you're going down this road with, and you know, you're not gonna do that with me.
No, that makes a ton of sense. You talk about the relationships you have with your players and them being able to relate to their peers and as they come in. So there's a lot of folks that haven't seen an ODU volleyball match yet, and are excited about going, can you just spend a minute or two or two or three minutes about. Some of your players and what we should be looking for there. The people that don't know anything about your roster or about the program.
We'll start with Theresa, Alan, and she is our she's one of our setters. She's our, our older setters, but she's really only a red. No, I don't even let me think about this last fall was her first year of eligibility. She competed this spring. Last fall was her first year of eligibility. She's somewhere around a sophomore, junior, junior, academically, sophomore volleyball wise, but she runs the offense.
You know, when you, when you watch a volleyball game, there is the setter who really controls the offense. She, she, she takes every second ball. She delivers a ball to the hitters, whoever she decides, whoever we've we've decided where whatever the decision process is that she's going through. She's a quarterback point guard.
Whatever analogy you wanna make to a team sport where someone initiates everything she's she is the person in our, in the culture of our program that we absolutely needed to elevate the performance level because. I don't know if that's, you know, I don't know, what's better that she hates to lose or she loves to win. I don't, I don't it's, it's all the same to her. It brings out the best in her. When we train, she goes through, she does the work, she works to improve. She works to improve.
And as, but then as soon as we start scoring something, something changes in her and she becomes, she becomes the, the strategist and, and steps up to the plate and really figures out a way to maximize our advantages and hide our weaknesses. So I she's one, she's one that you're going to see a lot. Hailey Duncan, she was a transfer in from another school. She's local. She went to a Western branch high school.
She, she transferred in from another school without us still having a, a program to speak of yet. But she is a. She is a high level athlete and she has really developed, and she's a middle, middle blocker, middle hitter. However you wanna describe it, but she's the one that really when she attacks, she attacks through the middle of the net and she attacks very quickly, but she also has a huge job to block whoever's hitting on the other side. And she's, she's, she's really good.
She's really fun to watch. We have some, some outside hitters that are very dynamic, you know, you're gonna see them and you're gonna say, well, they don't look very big. Well, first they don't look very big because they're standing next to their teammates. But they they're, they're really good volleyball players. Kira Smith played on the same for the same club as Theresa out in San Diego. And They just developed volleyball at a really high level, even at a young age.
So she though she does not look very tall, she gets the job done. I think Madeline Rudd was our very first commit. She committed at a basketball game on an unofficial visit. We'd, we'd chatted, we'd gone through it. And by the time before the basketball game was over, we met in the mezzanine level and she said, I wanna be the first recruit to commit at ODU. She has developed really, really well. She's from North Carolina originally. And she's, she's a good, she's a really good offensive player.
Ands got a good size block and can slow down some some attackers on the other side, I think the one that everybody seems to notice is Maya Conway. She's our our lefty right side player. And this we recruited her and we didn't get to see her through the COVID times. And she shows up on campus and she's two inches taller than she was. And
That's gotta be a pleasant surprise.
yeah, we were, she, she and her family showed up for moving and I was like, whoa, ma you grew. She's like, yeah. but she, she has come so far. She's done so well. She continues to get better. She continues to understand how to be. 6 4, 6, 3 offensive threat from anywhere on the court. We got to spend the a few days out in Colorado Springs at the Olympic training center. She got to play with some of the best players in her age group, in the country.
And you know, she's, she's something special for sure.
Awesome. Appreciate you sharing some of that educating us a little bit. So.
Yeah. There's, there's so many, I mean, I could say so many good things about all of them. It's just those, you know, those are the ones that you'll remember from last year from being on court. Of course, live to Jesus she's back. And she's, she's a crowd favorite as well because she gets so fiery and and everybody loves who doesn't love that when you show that kind fire.
Absolutely.
so coach, before we move on, this is just a quick question. How deep do, how deep do you go in the roster during your normal match?
If we make no, no subs, we're, we're already have seven people because the LiRo is a, is a free substitution, but we'll pull in some ball control specialists, one or two of them. So that puts us at nine, eight or nine players. We may have to make a sub at some other point for something specific, if we haven't burned our subs for injury or poorer performance. But if we can keep it at at eight or nine, it, it really all depends on what system we are running at the time.
I say Theresa is our, our quarterback, but the rules in women's volleyball because of the number of subs we have, you can have two of them as they rotate through.
So. For example, if, if we can bring in if, if, if our setter is, is playing through the back three rotations, and instead of bringing her back to the front row where, you know, she we'd lose a front row attacker, we might sub her out, bring in another front row, attacker sub in another setter for those next three rotations out of the back row. If you start doing that, then you're starting to rack up some of your subs, but you're, you're really now honing in on playing those eight players.
The, the, the six starters, the, the seventh, the LiRo sorry, nine players. Because as you keep making those rotations, you'll run out of substitutions by the end of a set. So you can't start bringing in other players into the, into the fold. You have to stick with those two players subbing in for the same two players.
Interesting. I clearly am gonna have to brush up on my rule book, but
It's different. And, and the problem is it's different. High school rules are different club rules are different. Collegiate rules are different international volleyball rules are different, so good luck
we're gonna have to get a tutorial on how to be a good fan and know what to know what to look for before the season starts. So, okay. Old dominion completed a three and a half million dollar renovation of the ODU volleyball center in the fall of 2020. It's a phenomenal facility. Can you share a little bit with Monarch nation about the facility, how it benefits your players, your prospective student athletes, and when fans should expect, when they come out to a match?
yeah, I think when fans come out, they're going to see that it was purpose built. You know, it, it, it was a renovation. Yes. The space already existed. Every component of it had a purpose when, after it was gutted. And it, I was very, very fortunate to be included in so much of the process early on. And so, so much of it. And, and it, it, every time I walk into work, I walk in the gym and, you know, it's just one of those things where I don't know what it's like to build a house by myself.
but I can imagine that's the feeling, you know, where it was. It was one of those things where I, I made that decision. I made that decision so far, they've worked out. And but again, going back to the, the function of the design, I think the experience that I've gathered along the way really guided me to design a space that was very functional and the functionality of it makes it. Aesthetically pleasing, because you can see that there was a purpose for everything.
We have a wall, we have a, a net set up near the wall because we can only set up two practice courts, but there's still some space to use. So I asked, can we, can we put some poles along the wall there so that we can use, we can set up a half court as well? They said, sure. And now people come into the gym and they're like that, that is the coolest thing, because you can get so many extra reps done.
If when you don't need a full court, just by having a net set up on the on the wall they won't see the stuff that we've done really for the team, the team spaces, we put a lot of time and effort and thought into to make them feel like it's their space. And it's It's a bit homey where it's, it's not sterile. It's not your corporate chair, your chair there. They have a huge sofa that they can lounge on. They have study area, they have a nutrition area and then they have their locker room.
And it's one of those. It we've put so much time and effort into those spaces. And, and I think they really appreciate that as well. Those are the things that make a difference recruiting when recruits will go on the vibe on the feeling and because of how the, the department has really invested in the spaces and how we chose to decorate the spaces and design the spaces, it really shows a level of commitment that is palpable.
You know, they can see that they can say, wow, they, they did this for you guys. They did that for you guys. They must really commit to volleyball.
So coach speaking of that facility, you have pretty big name coming to town this year in Notre Dame. You also have some huge games on the road that. Well, big names to us as football and basketball fans with Michigan, North Carolina and Virginia tech. How does scheduling work in volleyball? Educate us.
Yeah, sure. So the Sunbelt will have, will come up with the conference schedule. Sunbelt's been great because they actually took input from the coaches to, to really map this out so that it was coach friendly. The non-conference. So we have four weeks before our, our first conference match, four weeks of. It could be tournament play. It could be, you know, single matches, whatever you you're limited to a certain number of play dates soon to be changed to matches in a year.
But it really, some people, when they schedule, they have an entire calculation for RPI that they stick to. And if you don't help the RPI, they're not going to schedule some of them, you know, they just need wins and they're looking to play teams that they can beat. And there's, there's that group as well. And there's a whole another group in between that are trying to develop their team. And we are, we are in a position where RBI doesn't matter to us yet.
What I'm trying to do is really develop our program, develop our team and play a, a plethora of teams that I think are challenging, very challenging, extremely challenging. Just to see where, where are we, where do we fit into the scheme of national volleyball scene and be, and that's the only way you're gonna do it. And, and if there is a gap between us and the next team, I want, I want to be exposed to it. I want our players to say, this is the gap.
And either we keep working training to meet that gap, to bridge that gap. Or we, as a staff have to say, we, we need to recruit to bridge that gap, but that gap is going to be bridged because our, our we're setting our goals pretty high.
I like it. So is it easier or more difficult as a young program to build that schedule?
If I think about it, it could be little bit more difficult. Depends on how depends it, it really becomes a hit or miss because you could get invited into a tournament where you are the team that everybody expects to beat, just because they need to win. Or you are the, the draw for the tournament. People are gonna say, Hey, this team is coming.
So, you know, if you wanna play a team, this, I think we fell somewhere as a matter of perspective to whoever was whoever our, our, our, whoever was hosting, the tournament, whoever we invited or whoever was at again, I think the time that I've had coaching and being in the league re facilitated the schedule in a big, big way. Notre Dame has a new coach.
Seima Rockwell she's, she's done a lot of the volleyball, broadcast, broadcasting, international volleyball, broadcasting, national championship broadcasting, all of that. She's four-time national championship from all over. She's the biggest name in volleyball and Notre Dame managed to get her there. But I knew Selema when she was dating my roommate at Mason. So once she got the job I was in and dating her with yeah. Pictures of the family, I'm saying, Hey, you haven't met this one yet.
You know, you and Jeff need to come and visit and oh yeah. We also have other close friends of yours in the area. And at some point she's like, how can I say no? so that fortunately, and, and coop, our sport administrator, she played at Notre Dame. So there's another connection there.
Hey coach. So why don't you take us through the home schedule and if you could walk us through what, what kind of level each team might we should expect? I, at least the nonconference at least the non schedule.
sure. You might have to read them off to me. I don't have them in front of me and I, my memory is getting worse and worse, but I know, well, I mean, our first we have a, we have a exhibition this Saturday against UNC Wilmington, you know, we've, we've gotten a little bit back and forth with them depending on who we've had and who they've had and, and things like that.
I, I think they're coach by their coach by another friend of mine Dotty Hampton, who was a women's assistant at Mason while I was the head coach at Mason. So
Coach. Who do you not know in the volleyball world?
That's what Adam and Becca always ask. The, but then we, we go away next weekend. Next week we travel to Northern Arizona to play tee three teams there. And we really open our season against Michigan big challenge. They will be a big, big 10 team. So whatever your, the stereotypes they're accurate they're gonna be big, strong, physical, well coached all of that. There's going to be a gap. And I want to know what that gap is.
I wanna know, is it, is it just that they're bigger than we are or are they bigger and better than we are, are a faster than we are? Are they smarter than we are? You know, what is it that, that we can do in the short term to bridge that cap? And then we, we play Utah tech, their successful team. I, I don't. I've I haven't had a chance to really dive into their history. But I know they've been good. And then we play Northern Arizona.
Now we did see, I did see them play when I was at duke and they were really good. I, I can't remember what our results were, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a five setter or they may have come out on top at that time. But yeah, they're really good.
There will be gaps there, but I'm hoping that our team can, can play at a really good level where we can make some tactical adjustments and really score some meaningful points against them and, and make it a competitive weekend for us where we are. We are going to win a match here and there.
So coach you guys are hosting your own tournament this year, and you have three programs that everyone at ODU knows, Navy ECU and Notre Dame. Could you tell us about how that tournament came together and how tournament invites go out and
Yeah, it's really, it's really not glamorous at all. It's Hey Paco, what are you doing the second weekend or the third weekend? He's like, oh I'm supposed to go here, but let me get back to you. Emails, go back and forth, say, you know what? That other tournament fell through. You still want us, you know, it's some version of that, you know, it's, it's reaching out to, to the coaches and, and that's about how it goes.
And some of them are already trying to do that for next year saying, Hey, we wanna lock in this weekend. Can you come? Or, or, or things like that. So it's really a very unglamorous process of. Ironing out things that change at the last minute, then you're scrambling to find another tournament to go to.
Well, I had to ask because we talked to Mallory from women's golf and her description of how land, tournament spots is very different from yours. So I'm glad I asked that question.
Yeah. It's and again, depending on if you're in Nebraska, you get a different kind of invite. You may not ever get invited because no one wants to play or you may get invited all the time because people want to see how they stack up, you know, it's you just never know how it goes. So fortunately there's enough teams out there that you're gonna find one that, that fits and you're gonna have a really good tournament.
So coach your team received the American volleyball coaches association and the Marine Corps team academic award. The team actually finished in the top 20% of everyone who won that award. What do you attribute to such great classroom success of your ladies? Do.
To them I attribute it all to them. They're supremely motivated in their academic pursuits. You know, we have biomedical engineering majors. We have I, I don't know. I can't even pronounce some of the things they're studying. We have a player who's studying civil engineering. We have engineering technology. We have nursing.
We have like I said, there there's, there's so many very rigorous majors that, that these players are pursuing and they, all I say is, hi, have you met Rachel, our academic coordinator? Okay, I'll see you later. you know, they, they know how to utilize resources. So I think that's that I would like to say there's a fit there because I don't, I don't like to hold hands of the recruits as they're going through the recruiting process.
I will give them what the information, I will tell them my perspective. I will do all of that. They have to be motivated enough to pick up the phone and say, Hey, coach, I'd like to come for a visit. Or, you know, there needs to be some responsibility on their part as well for the process. And once they do that, you know, you, you kind of know that, all right, they're, they're going to take care, take advantage of the resources that we have as well.
And if they can't do some of the work, it won't be because they're not trying. And it won't be because they don't have the resources for it. It it's just gonna be a lack of aptitude in that particular domain. And I'm okay with that.
So coach, we, we briefly talked about like your substitution strategy and us OD fans. We have a lot to learn about volleyball, cause this is all new to us still. What is the difference between what you're doing as a coach in practice and what you're doing in a game?
Yeah we'll, we'll even segment some of our practices. So right now we're practicing twice a day and our mornings will, there'll be a good segment of technical work. And then we'll go into system development work, and then in the afternoons, it'll be mainly gameplay. And the gameplay there won't be technical information. It will be tactical information. It will be, Hey, we need to, we need to attack this part of the court. We need to attack.
This particular player, we need to shore up this part of our defense, or we need to serve this particular player. It won't be about, Hey, you know what? You kind of need to get your elbow back or, you know, and I'm not sure you're holding your hands, right? So it becomes you have to do what you've been trained to do, but we need to steer it so that we've created advantages for ourselves. I think demeanor wise, I'm not too different.
I'm probably a little bit, I'm probably harder on them in practice than I am in a match. Not because I'm not competitive, but because I feel I don't want to get in their way. If I start becoming a point of distraction for them, then they are not playing free. I want them to play free. I want them, I wanna stay outta their way. I want to guide them when they need it, but I'm, I'm banking on the fact that we've done the work in practice.
And if we're not there yet, if that gap is not bridged between us and the opponent, then that's a practice thing. It's not, I'm gonna yell at you and force you to do something that you've never done before.
So obviously there's strategy with the substitutions. Cause we talked about that a lot. Are there other strategies that come into play during a match?
Yeah, we could. There's lots, you know, you, you gain advantage, you can overload a, a particular part of a court with attackers and try to take advantage of making one blocker, have to decide, am I gonna block this player or that player? Over from a system standpoint, you develop a certain speed and you you'll see that as a fan, you'll say, wow. It, the setter sets that ball a little bit higher on that team. So the attacker has a little bit more time to hit the ball.
Well, why, why doesn't O do you do that? Or why, why does another team do that? Well, there's a, there there's a, another side to that that allows the block to form. And now you have two blockers to form in an entire defense to play against. Now, if you have a hitter who can deal with that on a regular basis and be successful there, then there's no need to speed up.
But if you have some smaller hitters trying to go against bigger blockers, then that, that notion of speed needs to be in your offense. So globally, you're gonna see differences in speed in teams. You're gonna, you're gonna see tempo differences in teams serving becomes one of the larger strategies as well. Are you targeting a area on the court to make it difficult for their offense to develop, or are you targeting a particular player? Because we think that player will give up.
Poorer passes and make it harder for the system to function. We call that forcing them out of system. And is there a particular attacker on the other side that we need to put our best blocker up against? So that becomes a, a decision of what rotation are we going to start in? If they start in a rotation where their biggest hitter is starting, the first of our three front row rotations? Well, there's a good chance.
We're gonna put Maya in our, the first of our front three rotations because Maya can, can stop them. And so there's, there's that there's from, from set to set, there's going to be changes that are made and the team that wins a lot of times, they stay. And the team that loses that set will chase to try to match up a rotation to get those matchups. Right. But again, once. Once you put that line up in, there's not, not a lot you can do about it.
So how much time do you have their lineup for, for you to make your lineup?
You don't, you put it in block. You, you put it in without them knowing, without knowing what they're doing. So it's all handed to the officials and you don't see them until the, until it's locked in the official blows the players to step on court.
Mm.
they put, they check their rotation and then you're either like, yes, we got the matchup. Or like, no we're. Yeah.
Yeah. I didn't know if it was like baseball where you you're giving the other team, your, your lineup and comparing notes. So you can make adjustments maybe last minute.
Wow. No,
That would be easy, right?
no. Wonder if anys so successful.
okay. oh yeah. All right, coach. Let's, let's have a little bit of fun then we're gonna come back to something and then we're gonna have some more fun. So what's your best volleyball story.
It will go back to when I took over the program at Mason, I inherited a bunch of guys really long fall of trying to get everybody on the same page, our seasons in the spring, we're playing Penn state perennially one of the top men's volleyball programs in the country, and I'm doing the scouting on them. This is of course, with VHS tapes, I'm making a rotation tape.
I have to stick the tape in there, get the other deck going hit record, hit play, then hit pause and hours and hours find this rotation. And I come away with the conclusion. We're going to get blown outta the water unless we get the rotation match up. Right? Because I have, I have a blocker who can't hit and they have a really good hitter. So my blocker needs to block that guy. We have a middle who can hit quick against a smaller middle, or, you know, it, it became this whole thing.
I said, the only way we stand a chance is if we get the matchup, right. And even at that point, they're still the better, the, the better team we play, the fir we start the first set and we're like, oh, we were close. We were off by one rotation and we get demolished. This is when we're still playing the 15. Now that the games are played, the sets are played to 25. But this is when we, we was like 15, six or something. The set two comes around and I chase. So I move our rotation.
And I catch them. And so we are matched up properly and it's a dog fight and we win that set like 15, 13 win by two. So of course they move. I don't know where they're gonna move to. So I can't actually move. They move. We get blown out in the third set. Fourth set comes around. They're not gonna move. We find them. We squeak out another win there, 16 for, so now we're going into the deciding set. It's two, two, and we haven't been two, two against Penn state in a while.
This is like a chess match.
It is ex it was exactly the best part of the story is I'm like, what are we gonna do? I have a, I have players, two players on my team that are older than I am. took over the program when I was 26. There was a guy who finishes Navy. Obligation and a guy who finishes air force obligation. The Navy guy looked like GI Joe. And he was, he was one of the warriors on our team. He's, he's gone to battle, he's sitting next to me and I'm like, all right, this is what I'm going to do.
We start the fist set and I put all my subs out. They put their lineup out and at that point everybody's locked in. Now I finally see what lineup, what rotation they've been put in, but they have no idea why I put in all of my subs. And we're only allowed six subs in men's volleyball. So during that time I mapped out who needs to come out for whom in a substitution pattern so that I can actually get the rotation that I wanted in that particular instance, GI Joe, my player next to.
He's like, Hey Fred, I get what you're doing. So if you mess this up, I'm gonna kill you. and I'm like, prince move down the end of the bench. Get away from me. I'm trying to figure this out. Well, we end up, I make a six person sub after three points go by. I sub all of the subs out.
I put all the starters back in, in the proper rotation and we battle out, we end up losing like 17, 15, but for me it was one of those things where I don't know if I'll ever do that again, because you know, there there's, there's too much at stake there and it's super unconventional.
But at the time it was one of the best feelings to look down at the bench and see the entire Penn state squad, looking at our players at our bench, which only included me because I didn't have the staff and just being like, what are they doing? And it, it nearly paying off for us. It certainly worked out. It just didn't pay off
That's awesome. I'm gonna be looking for the total line change this season now.
Yeah. I dunno if, I don't know if I have the guts to do that anymore.
all right. So obviously you've been coaching for a long time and you played, so there's gotta be a college volleyball environment or a particular venue that you played or coached at that just stood above the rest. You know, what was it and what made it different or better than. You know, other ones that, that you've been.
Hands down, bringing the team to Hawaii. The, the, the volleyball fans in Hawaii love their volleyball. It was it, it is a passion of theirs and everyone goes to the matches. It was also again my first year and I took over the program because Uvaldo a, Coasta the previous head coach, a friend of mine who I, I helped, I assisted for a little bit. He, he had the team in Hawaii the year before they went out into the, the ocean and, and he never came back.
He drowned in the north shore at Hawaii after having played Wednesday night, they were out on the beach Thursday and he got taken out. So that was the year that was 98. That was the year that they asked me to take over. And that's when I took over that fall. And then the, my first year back was the first year, first season was 99. Hawaii was gracious enough to ask us to come back and help fund our trip and all of that.
And so that particular trip held so much, meaning it held it was an honor to be there with the Hawaiians who revered Uvaldo AOSA they, he was, he was a figure for them because he was an undersized player who played in on the national team. And, you know, the Hawaiians typically really gravitate to that, that, that type of player, they know their volleyball, they know the people in their volleyball, they know the history of volleyball and they came out and they supported us well.
That's a pretty awesome story. I grew up in Hawaii, so I know a little bit about the love for volleyball on the islands. And I also know a lot about the north shore and how it's it's, it's a beautiful place to be, but it, it can, the, the ocean fights back bad.
Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was one of those tragedies that, that you can, you can never have imagined was going to happen.
Yeah. That's a tough, well, the monarchist, I'm not sure if you're aware, but we started as a tailgate group. But we've kind of shifted and become a podcast, but more importantly, we take a lot of pride in fundraising. We do a annual choice for tos fundraiser at the oyster bowl game. We've helped with dollars for dinners. We created it. And we've also helped with other sports doing the football bull drive and soccer and among others.
So we really are proud of our commitment to old dominion and charity. We'd like to ask you what your favorite charities are. And if you could share a little bit about why and what they do.
I don't, I don't have a strong relationship with, with, with many, I know we've supported the dig pink initiative, which was volleyball specific for breast cancer. And you know, I, I think that dig pink initiative raised it continues to raise money for breast cancer research. And a lot of that research happened at a. One of the satellite campuses of George Mason. So that was something that we, we supported there this year.
We are helping with some of the teams at our VCU tournament when we go to VCU and we're lacing up to help fight pediatric cancer. And so we'll have gold shoe laces on that, that to kind of bring awareness to that. And there's so many serious and well deserving charities out there, but on a regular basis, I, I support OD it's kind of self-serving and it's kind of selfish, but I also know that there is a finite amount of resources that we have as a university.
And I know how hard the administration works to delegate it in such a way to. Sometimes it's it's opposite motivations, you know, you want to, to, to do the best for the, the athletic department, but what is that in whose eyes in which stakeholders is that the best use of the money?
And so I know the more money we can generate with Jenna and OD D the more that helps everybody, the more that eases a bit of the, the load for the department, while they continue to fund programs at the, at a very competitive level. And so, I guess for me, it's just a familiarity of knowing that on a day to day basis. I know that that, that money where that money goes to in the long run, short run, long run, every run, I know where that money is going to, and.
And we have people who are really taking care of that and trying to make the best of it.
Well, we support that. We, you know, we do. So on the same note, we love VO F we also love old dominion. What in your time here have you come to do.
I love that there are people that love old dominion like you guys, but like the people that we sit next to in the airport that say, oh, what do you do at old dominion? Oh, I love old me. You know, I, and the next thing that comes out of their mouth is either I love old dominion or I went to old dominion or someone I know, went to old dominion and had a great experience.
So, you know, I I've, I've, I've been at at least two universities where you walk in a, a majority of the airports, so you're gonna see their gear every. Right, but no one talks to you about it.
But I love the, the feeling of connectedness, the approachability that, that people in the old dominion community have with people who are still in the old dominion community will be recruiting, be Adam, Becca, and I, and someone will walk through a, a convention center and find us because they say, I saw your old dominion shirt. And I wanted to tell you that I graduated there in, in whatever year.
And I'm so honored to see that they now have a volleyball program cuz my granddaughter or my daughter or whatever is playing volleyball. So I think that that sense of community is extremely special. No one here has to be told, Hey, wear old dominion stuff. They just.
That's so true. I go to the final four every year with some buddies that I serve with in the military. We come together. Mike went this year for the first time with us and I, Mike witnessed I always wear ODU gear every day. And we had at least four or five people came up to us on solicited that either were old mening alum. Or went to other schools in Virginia, like JMU or whatever, and had to strike up the conversation. So it's always really cool.
It's always a conversation starter for, for sure.
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I, I love seeing the people who work there on a daily basis. It just, I don't know. It, it is just something special about how connected everybody is and I hope it doesn't come across as cliche because again, I mean, I, I, I have a history of being. Some places. And I have a lot of friends who are in the same industry and they can't say the same thing.
All right. We're gonna transition to some fun questions here to kind of end this thing end this thing on a, on a high note. That's right. That's right. Don't don't worry. There are no wrong answers. If, if there are, we won't say so. what's your favorite place on the ODU campus?
our gym.
All right. What's your favorite restaurant in nor
Oh gosh. We take recruits to so many different places.
Okay. What are your favorite? Three
Okay. Tipping. We will go Baker's crust. We will take them to potentially stripers or, I mean, on a whole nother scale. I love delves. Fellini's oh, Fellini's is a good one too. And then if it's not with a recruit, I'll go to Hanks.
great answers? North Colley is the place to.
Yeah.
all those places are great places to eat. All right. What's your favorite volleyball movie?
Oh, I don't watch volleyball movies. I don't oh, no
believe there are, there are more, there are more volleyball movies than air bud there. Yes.
but I've never seen it. I've never seen it. I can't, I can't. No.
Would you, would you quantify a top gun as a volleyball movie?
if, if we can count that, then that will be it. If that counts, that will be my favorite volleyball
I think it counts.
Okay.
All right. Favorite musical artist in bucket list concert. You want to go to.
There, there, there might be two right now and I'm kicking myself, but I, I can't control it. Virginia tech football comes here to play September 2nd. I think September
yep. You got it.
we are at Virginia tech playing in their tournament. Well, that same weekend oar it's called of a revolution is, is playing in Virginia Beach. I would love to see them because they are from the same county. I went to high school and they are maybe a year or two. I have friends who were friends with theirs and I thought that would just be the coolest thing to see how they've just made this career for themselves. But I would also wanna see Dave Matthew.
So coach oar in high school, I was a big fan of their, so I lived in Northern Virginia. And me and my buddies used to go to every show they played at nine 30 club
oh, yes. Yes. That is awesome. I think they went to either Churchill or Wooton high school up in Montgomery county, but yeah, just incredible. Incredible what they've done.
yeah, I think they were at Maryland in college at that time. I'm not sure.
Yeah. That would be, that would make sense.
All right. So when we had Dom Manila on the podcast, we asked him who out of all the coaches, non tennis coaches, he thought would be the most formidable opponent to play in tennis. And he says, he sees you stroll in. Sometimes you play tennis and then you got some skills. So what, so, so what we want to know is if you were picking a beach volleyball partner out of all the coaches on campus, who would you pick and why They can't be volleyball
I gotcha. I gotcha. I gotcha. If it was, if it was men's it'd probably have to be Ricky it'd have to be Ricky. Ronnie. He, cuz he could be the big, he could be the one that blocks at the net and and then I could, I could play around him and and his wife played volleyball. So I'm he, she could give him a crash course if it was co-ed does it have to be a coach? Cause if it was an admin, I would say coop, cuz she played at Notre Dame, but if it was a coach, it'd be DIA for sure. It'd be DIA.
You know, she definitely have the height and judging from, and then Nancy Lieberman talking about her. She's gotta be pretty fierce out there.
Yeah. Yeah, I would just do the ball skill stuff and let her just win points. Just go do your thing.
So close coach to close us out here. This is a fan made podcast for the fans. So if you could O if you could ask Monarch nation to do one thing, to help the team continue their upward trajectory what would it be?
Come to one match. Just, just commit to come to one match, because I know if you come to one match, you'll come to another match. And I think at the end of the day, that's really the best way to support our student athletes is to find opportunities to cheer them on for all the work that they put in. And yeah, that's really my only ask.
Well, I, I got my booklet. I'm ready to come. I know Aaron has his, you can't wait for the first home match. So thank you for joining us tonight. We, we can't wait for this season and wish you the best of luck.
Thank you so much. I had a great time. It was great talking with you guys
Absolutely. We can't wait to get out there. And you know, maybe after the season's over and we can get on do a little bit of a recap or preview before the next one.
would love it. I would absolutely love it. Thank you so much, guys.
Absolutely
you. The
go monarchs.
monarchs.
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