DAYTON (OH) — The first time that I met Kelly I asked him to describe the personality that his teams would play with because teams usually reflect the personality of their coach. Kelly said that he would prefer that I formed my own opinion. After watching Kelly’s teams for a while I have formed my opinion of what I expect from his teams. I expect his teams to be: 1) Mentally and physically prepared, 2) Intense, 3) Hard Working, 4) Precise.

I heard someone describe Kelly as a volleyball engineer and that is a pretty good summation. Kelly leaves no stone unturned in his preparation for another team. There may be a couple of times a match when you say to yourself “Why did they try to do that?” but there was a reason for doing it. Kelly and his staff had probably noticed a tendency by the other team (or individual player) to struggle with a particular type of serve or defensive block.

Kelly has chalk talks with UD fans before the home matches to describe specific strategies for that match. He also speaks about the skills and training of particular players. If you are interested in learning more about volleyball this is a great place to start. I will be attending most of the chalk talks and hope to see you there.

Kelly was kind enough to answer several questions and here is our Q & A session. I hope you enjoy. I plan on having another article by Friday. It should be noted that Kelly’s wife Cathy is due to deliver on September 24th which is the date of the St Louis match.

Question 1) How did you become interested in volleyball and when did you actually think it might become a career?

In 1989 a former high school classmate was coaching the JV team at Muncie Burris (IN) High School. She gave me a call one night to see if I happened to see her boyfriend out with another girl the night before. At the time I was coaching a middle school cross country team and our conversation eventually turned to coaching. Before we got off the phone I told her if she ever needed help to let me know. I don’t know why I said that, I’m pretty sure it was just a young guy trying to flirt.

Anyway, the next day she called me back and asked if I was serious about what I had told her the night before. I actually had no idea what she was talking about and had to be reminded about offering to help her. Later that night I went to my first volleyball practice. It was an exciting time to be around the sport. There were so many of us that were starting together at the time and we were all learning from each other and had unbelievable mentors – some of the best teachers in the game. For eight years if I wasn’t in the gym running a practice or camp, I was in a gym watching how someone else coached and trained. I wasn’t thinking about coaching as a profession, I was just having fun and doing something I was extremely passionate about and loved. In 1997 the coach at Bowling Green University, who I worked quite a few camps for, asked if I had thought about coaching in college. Unbelievably, I had never thought of it. She asked me that if she got me a job would I be interested in coaching in college. To this day it is still one of the coolest questions anyone has ever asked me.

Question 2) Is there any particular person that might have been responsible for you becoming the vball coach of a nationally ranked team?

As a head coach, you get to stand on a lot of people’s shoulders. I am standing on the shoulders of coaches I learned from, and with, at Muncie, along with the many coaches I’ve coached alongside with at the other universities I’ve been. I stand on the shoulders of the administrators here at UD that decided I had the qualifications and skills to help take the program in the direction they were looking to go, and, on a daily basis, I am standing on the shoulders of my players and staff here – people that put in a lot of work and love to keep us moving forward.

Question 3) I was very impressed with the US vball teams in the olympics. the men in particular improved their play two notches when they went to a faster offense where their undersized outside hitters were now going against single blocks. Explain your goals for the dayton offense, now and in the future.

I am looking to recruit great talent. Talent shows itself in a lot of ways. Right now we are one of the more physical teams in the country. Will we always be that way? I don’t know. I hope so, but there’s also not a lot of talented 6’6 players like Lindsay or 6’3 outsides like Rachel on a yearly basis. I want athletes. I’d like them to have great size, but I would rather have a great athlete that is 6’1 than a player who is 6’4 that doesn’t move very well. Hopefully we can find and recruit both!

Other than size and athleticism, I want players that absolutely have a passion and love to play this game and a drive to max out their potential. I also tend to recruit players that are fearless and just fun people to be around. I don’t have a set offense. I recruit the best talent that I can, and then try and put people in situations to take showcase and take advantage of those talents. Sometimes that means quickening up the offense, or it may mean running a spread offense, or one with a lot of crossing patterns.

Question 4) What skills will you be looking for when recruiting different positions.

Depends on what we need. Libero’s must be great passers, first and foremost. They’ve got to be ‘money’ with the first contact. They’ve got to raise up to challenges and they’ve got to have a great spirit as if to say, “Bring it, baby!”.

Setters need to be able to locate. Period. Everything else is secondary. I love for my setters to be great leaders. It’s not critical for the position, but it’s a quality that I like.

Left-sides, you either need to have a hammer like Rachel or great ball control like Amanda. Championships are won with left-sides. They get the most sets and need to be able to score points. Big arm and great bounce-back-ability are pretty important qualities for outside hitters.

Middles need to be workhorses and be able to cover ground laterally. Fast off the ground is important. Right-sides can take on many different looks and is really the player that offenses are designed off of. Some rights are like outside hitters and hit everything second tempo, others are run like middles and run everything first tempo or slides, some are just big blockers, and others are primary passers and hit all along the net. Our team has each of these types of right-sides. I don’t know if I have a preference. You MUST be able to block, but other than that, I’m not sure if I have a preference.

Question 5) Can you give us some info on what talents/skills your different staff members bring to the table?

Matt is our recruiting coordinator. He is a very organized guy and is great at building relationships – something that is critical in coaching and recruiting in particular.

Brittany is in charge of our video and statistical analysis, among many other things. She is one of the most competitive people I’ve ever been around, yet has a softer side that makes it easy and fun for people to be around. Our players relate very easily with her, and yet she is a very good teacher in the gym. Carrie has an unbelievable love for the game. She has been instrumental in the growth of our middles and setters the past couple of years.

I’m very lucky to have the people that I have on my coaching staff. They work their tales off and they love to compete. They are also passionate about teaching and helping people reach their potential. It’s fun working with people who you consider to be close friends.

Question 6) Expectations are higher than ever for UD volleyball this year with your first preseason ranking. What have the players done in the off season and in practice to make you feel comfortable that those expectations aren’t too high?

Expectations too high? That’s laughable! We had 48 personal records in the weight room (strength, speed, jump) this summer. There are seven tests that have been done three times a year for the past ten years. Out of those seven tests, we have 12 people that broke in the top seven all-time this past month during testing. This team is fit, healthy, talented, and motivated. I see a confident team that believes in themselves and each other, but I also see a team that knows we are a work in progress. They are always searching for ways to get better. You won’t see a team anywhere, work as hard and compete like this team does, and you won’t see a team anywhere, who is closer and cares for one another more than this one does. There were very few changes in facial expressions when they were told what our preseason ranking was.

And I get the feeling that it would probably be the same if we were ranked 3rd in a month or not ranked at all in a month. Our focus is entirely on getting better each and every day – compete and hopefully have a little bit of fun. Champions put all of their energies into getting better and reaching their standards. We will try and do the same thing.

Question 7) Karch Kiraly (the greatest player ever) has repeatedly said that the first pass is the most important play in volleyball. Coud l have your thoughts on this? How much time does your team spend working on passing/serve receive.

It’s hard to argue with Karch. There’s no question there’s a big correlation to passing the serve and winning. We spend a significant amount of time on this every single practice. We are trying to side-out 63% of the time, and in order to do that you’ve got to put pressure on the block and have three options attacking. We feel that if we can have three options 60% of the time, we are going to have a good chance of winning.

Question 8) Who would you consider your top three passers?

Amanda has the best numbers followed by Paige. Sometimes people serve Amanda to try and make her pass and hit, in order to try and wear her down or limit her attack options. Others will go after Paige because her numbers are just under Amanda’s and because she’s a little younger. Rachael B., Rachel K., and Tiffany’s passing numbers are very close to Paige’s. Every one of them are passing at a higher number than they were a year ago. They work hard at it. Paige and Rachel K. both went to a libero camp this summer and Amanda, Rachael B, and Tiffany all passed thousands of balls this summer .

Question 9) You are obviously having a great time at UD. I’m sure you had high expectations when you arrived here. Could you tell us one or more things that have been even better than you expected here?

First of all, Cathy and I really like living here and being a part of the UD family. The love that people have for this university and the school spirit that is here on campus has been more than I thought. I had no idea, coming in. This place is the best kept secret in the country. I think we have a President and Athletic Director that are making it a priority to get the word out. This is such a fun campus to walk around and a really fun place to go to attend sporting events at. The community here is also extremely unique. People care about each other here. They help each other through the tough times and are there with unbridled enthusiasm during the good times. It’s a wonderful place to be able to work at and I hear it all the time from all of the other coaches in this athletic department.

Question 10) You have one of the toughest pre conference schedules in the country. Can you tell me how this stacks up with other schedules in UD’s past?

It’s definitely a challenging schedule. There are 330 Division I teams and every one of our out of conference opponents has an RPI of 90 or better. Every one of those teams has a very good chance of being in the NCAA Tournament. We’ve got three matches against teams that legitimately have a chance to play in the Final Four, and another eight teams that have the talent and coaching to still be playing the second weekend. I don’t think any team in the country has a pre-conference schedule more challenging than ours. The team and staff are looking forward to it and seeing where we stack up against other great programs.

Question 11) There are several very tough teams in the A10 but there are also some weaker teams which occurs in any conference. How do you keep the team focused on improving during periods where they can win without playing their A game?

We talk about Standards of Performance a lot. The focus is on those standards whether you are playing the #1 team in the country or the #300 ranked team in the country. This team is competitive, experienced, and absolutely loves playing this game. But we also have great depth, so if we have players that we see are having a problem with their focus, we’ll let them try and figure that out at the end of the bench.

Question 12) Please tell fans who have never attended a match at the Frerick’s Center why they should come and watch this tremendous team.

You will be entertained and hopefully leave a little bit inspired as well. This team will play hard, I promise you that. Frericks is one of the best places to watch a collegiate sporting event. It is loud and you can get close to the action. I think we have a chance to be really good by the end of the year. And I will tell you this, this is a sports town. People love their sports here in Dayton and I think we’ll be supported better than we ever have in the past. People are fired up about the possibilities of this year and are excited that UD Arena will be one of the four Regional sites this year. This is an easy team to rally around and I think people will really have a good time watching this team grow and compete.

Thanks Coach!