| The prep volleyball notebook … Wanda Watts’ assistant volleyball
coach at South Rowan is a machine named “set-n-spike.” But that beats the
situation at several other Rowan County schools.
The burgeoning popularity of high
school volleyball led to record turnouts in August at nearly every school. The bad news
that goes along with the eagerness of the student-athletes is that the coaches have a hard
time figuring out what to do with all those kids.
Watts, in her eighth year leading
the Raiders, is among the lucky ones — sort of. In just her second year the athletic
department, athletic boosters and South volleyball team split the cost of a machine that
folds up against the gym wall. It comes down every day in the fall and keeps half of her
20 players occupied while the other half works on the court.
“We have one practice and
it’s not easy at all,”Watts said. “I send one group to the wall net and
work with the other group. It’s been a blessing, but it’s still real hard. The
kids spend a lot of time sitting while I work with one group.”
A second coach would ease that
work load considerably, but volleyball currently receives only one coaching allotment as
per Rowan-Salisbury schools’ policy.
Cross country, golf, swimming and
tennis also have one coaching allotment, while boys and girls soccer — with roughly
the same number of players as volleyball — receive two coaches each. Cheerleading
coaches also are covered in the policy and the five county schools get a varsity and JV
coaching allotment despite often smaller numbers than most volleyball squads.
For a volleyball head coach to get
help, somebody is putting out a lot of time and effort for no compensation.
AtSalisbury, head coach Bob Beiter
is lucky enough to have Julie Lillrose guiding the junior varsity Hornets this year. Susan
Drye, West Rowan’s head coach, picked up two volunteers about a month ago and is
happy to have Janice Hartsell andChristy Steele making her life easier.
“It’s been real nice. We
split practice now and I can focus more on one team,” Drye said. “It makes it a
whole lot easier practicing with 10 girls at a time instead of having 20 girls with one
adult.”
And having one person focus on the
junior varsity players aids a program’s development.
“It’s a big
advantage,”Beiter said. “I get to spend my time with the varsity players and the
JVplayers aren’t neglected because they have their own coach.”
On the flip side of the issue are
coaches like Watts and East Rowan’s Sandy Basinger, in her fifth year leading the
Mustangs without an assistant. In her first year of teaching at East, Basinger coached the
junior varsity girls basketball squad, then took on volleyball when that teamed was formed
the following fall.
Despite the influx of new teachers
at East every September, no one has stepped forward to help fill an unpaid coaching
position, and it’s easy for Basinger to see why.
“I don’t know if
there’s knowledge or interest in doing it, but it’s hard in your first two years
with all the things you have to do (teaching),”Basinger said. “It’s really
hard to carry that extra load — the extra hours, getting observed. Not that it
can’t be done, but it’s very taxing.”
While most of the county’s
smaller schools face crowded courts for the first time, having too many players for not
enough coaches has plagued Watts at Class 4A South Rowan throughout her entire tenure. Her
Raiders have fielded a junior varsity team all along, and Watts goes up against
Winston-Salem foes from the Central Piedmont Conference that often have a head and
assistant varsity coach in addition to a JV coach.
“They find the money to field
ninth-grade football and ninth-grade basketball. Baseball has a varsity and assistant
coach and a JV coach,”Watts said of the area policy. “We’ve just been
slacked.”
North Rowan head coach Tricia
Hester knows the feeling. She coached against the Raiders during the 1994 volleyball
season as a paid junior varsity coach for R.J. Reynolds. Now she juggles 25 girls by
herself for the 2A Cavaliers and is among the only schools in theCentral Carolina
Conference without a paid assistant’s position.
“They don’t have the
money to pay anybody so it’s hard to get someone in,”Hester said. “They
might have decided the money needed to be spent in other places.”
The good news for Hester and her
coaching cohorts is that the school board is ready to listen — and always has been,
according to Dr. Danny Thomas, assistant superintendent.
“Each year we go through a
budget process, starting in February, and we ask for recommendations,”Thomas said.
“I don’t remember this past year hearing from high school principals making a
request.”
Maybe it’s time.
n
Steve Hanf covers prep volleyball
for the Post. |
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