The Underappreciated Teacher-Coaches
July 3, 2008 by hugh29I got this comment from our elder statesman, Devo.
“It became popular in schools because one or two teachers loved the sport and worked their butts off to make it happen. One day the state and national associations will work out how much they owe to a select group of teachers.”
As if teachers weren’t underappreciated enough as it is, some go well beyond the call of duty as educators to give the kids they teach/coach some of the most valuable experiences and opportunities that they will carry into their adult lives.
Certainly I think that the sport grew largely because of the massive and underappreciated contributions of some larger-than-life gravitas-grade educators that goes on to this day. Volleyball is the most popular unit in yr 12 PE. Thanks largely to the PE teachers who put it there. Teachers were the people who lobbied to give volleyball the prominence it deserved against established sports like football, rugby and netball. They fought for the gym. They spent hours working with hopeless athletes who had a lot of potential. They spent hours convincing some excellent athletes to play volleyball instead of football, basketball or netball. They were the champions, the pioneers and the evangelists of our great sport. Come to think of it, all my favourite coaches are current and former teachers.
I’ve wanted to do this for a while, so I’m dedicating this post to a select few of my favourite coaches who, as underappreciated as they may be in volleyball, are completely underappreciated outside of it. In addition to the usual challenges, these people have to put up with being around people who really don’t “get” volleyball on a daily basis. These coaches stick out in my mind for a number of reasons. 1) They coach teams that consistenly overachieve. 2) They’ve put players into the AIS. 3) Their programs are at risk of disintegrating when they leave.
There are probably some other great coaches who face these same challenges who i haven’t written about,. But i’ve picked these 3 for a reason: I’ve gotten more familiar with them from losing to them quite often!
Can one person make a big difference? I think so. Do they deserve more recognition for their contributions to sport and education? Absolutely.
Glen Urbani
Sometimes i reckon the most underappreciated teacher-coach i came across was Glen Urbani at Rostrevor College. For a tiny pool of talent (i reckon he usually only had 2 or 3 teams at any given time), he easily has the highest strike rate of getting players into the AIS (5 - Andrew Dwyer, Adam Maskell, Travis Moran, Matthew Hunt and Harrison Peacock). His teams ALWAYS made honours and won countless national titles. They have not missed qualification for OHB since 1999. When they don’t qualify for the “third slot” at state cup, they manage to get in through a wildcard and end up outperforming one of the SA teams that did qualify.
Unfortunately Urbani worked at a school that was far more interested in producing AFL footballers (Ben Hart and Luke Darcy to name a couple) and first class cricketers. Volleyball ranked well below even basketball, soccer and god knows what else. Imagine what he could have done with all of those athletes too!
My friends who went to Rostrevor used to tell me that it was hard for their Open Honours Boys team to get the gym to train in. This team had been national champs TWICE (U15BH, U16BH) and runners up one year)and had to wait well after hours for a yr8 basketball team to finish training to get use of the gym.
Yet Glen persevered with the dedicated help of the Barton family and the results speak for themselves. I can think of possibly only 1 other coach who inspires the sort of loyalty that Glen does from his alumni, and they all come back to help out and join his uphill battle. 5 national reps including an Olympian, 3 honours titles and 2 silvers, and god knows what else in the trophy cabinet. Deadset legend!
Noel Drew
One of my other favourite teacher-coaches has got to be Noel Drew. It’s always fun reading the biographies of coaches and players in that little booklet they give you at AVSC. According to Noel Drew’s bio in the guide one year, he only held a modest Level 1 coaching certificate, and had “been unable to get any other any other teacher at the school interested in coaching volleyball” despite his successes. Was this for real? It was like finding out how Einstein didn’t have a uni degree and that everyone thought this idea he had about “relativity” was bollocks. Were there mistakes in the copy before it went to print? was this some sort of elaborately ingenious deadpan prank? Well, apparently not.
To be fair, I’ve never really “lost” to Noel Drew. Since his teams were usually in honours and mine… weren’t. And that one time i lost to one of his teams in div 1, they were just coaching themselves….
It was in 2005 and I coaching open div 1 girls for Willunga. We came up against what I thought looked like the most unimposing team in our division. The girls were short and didn’t look athletic. they were mainly of southern or south eastern asian descent, which isn’t traditionally athletic. It looked like they only had one hitter and the rest struggled to clear the height of the net. And they didn’t have a coach. It’s safe to say they wiped us off the court, and I think went on to finish in the top 4. This group of girls had made honours previously, but didn’t train enough that year because of study commitments. They quickly became my favourite team to watch in that tournament. Noel had to coach two teams, so he let them take care of themselves, which they ably did.
The whole episode just summed up Noel Drew. Under-resourced, with less-than-imposing athletes, under-prepared, and with practically no support, he developed a kick-ass team that were good enough to take care of themselves. Like Urbani, he did a lot with very little. Where a dogmatic, blueblood sporting tradition stood in Glen’s way, an academic tradition stood in Drew’s. Baulkham Hills was an academically selective school. It didn’t exactly attract super atheletes. It didn’t exactly attract kids who were into sport, or came from households that thought much of it. Half of Noel’s challenge was to get his players out of the house away from the books to play some sport! Under Drew, BHHS won 2 honours titles and Rowena Morgan got into the AIS. LEGEND!
Denise “Denny” WIlliams
I first lost to Denny’s Great Lakes boys team in 2006 coaching U16 div 1 boys. Her team had some really cocky players but they were a lot of fun and our teams got along great. Must be a country thing i don’t get. We always seemed to get stiffed playing our games somewhere in the stix so we shared a long shuttle and train trip back to Melbourne where we talked about Australian films. Denny’s actually seen more Australian Films than I have which is a bit embarrassing for someone in my line of work.
I think Denny originally taught at Strathfields where she worked with Christie Mokotupu. She went to Great Lakes for a holiday and never came back. Where Noel was a guy who refused to waste his time coaching boys, Denny was a woman who refused to waste her time coaching girls. Great Lakes’ teams have consistently performed well in div comps. Their Open div 1 boys won the national title last year (while we came second tolast) and their open div 2 girls lost to ours in the final. With the quality of players they have, they could really push for honours, but apparently, they don’t really have access to a gym to regularly train in!
The Aussie men’s big left-handed scoring machine Paul Carroll was coached by Denny. Legend! I think she’s traveling around canada on a holiday sabbatical and will be a pity if i don’t get to catch up with her in melbourne at the end of the year.
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To not like volleyball is understandable. After all, a bunch of parents at Willunga apparently started a “parents against volleyball” group, and if this gets traction, my colleagues there will soon be added to my list. But to not respect it is another thing altogether. And to not appreciate the craft, dedication and brilliance of these people is a travesty.
What do the colleagues of these coaches honestly think they do? Do they think it’s some crackpot eccentric hobby like home brewing? It’s a serious sport. Outside of 4 australian states could you say the same about AFL? Volleyballers go on to play professionally overseas, get college scholarships in the US, and reperesent australia agaisnt countries that have proud volleyball traditions. Even if they don’t, volleyballers tend to be high achievers in whatever they go on to do because they have to do a bit better than run into someone to be good at what they do.
These teacher-coaches have my admiration for their ability to do great things under trying circumstances. I hope they have yours too.