Three coaches within four years – that was the reality for Union Alumna Lydia Wright, setter for the Lady Bulldogs from 2011-2015. She was recruited by Coach Elliot, played for Coach Mooberry, and then finished her career under Coach Swisher. As one would suspect, the frequent changes in coaching staff while she played at Union made for many difficulties, both for the team and for Lydia individually.
“It was hard to keep a lot of consistency with so many coaching staff changes. There were also girls that would transfer or leave, so that made it tough for consistency as well,” she said.
The team struggled over the years of many coaching staff changes, coming away from each season with a losing record, despite the team’s hard work and effort to attempt to come together. Things were looking grim, until 2015, when Union hired Darrin McClure as the new head coach of the Lady Bulldogs volleyball team. Although Coach McClure knew he would have some rebuilding to do, he had no concept of what it would need to look like.
“I asked a lot of questions as far as what’s the budget, this and that, and I got all those answers but I don’t know if I really knew to the degree that it was,” he said as he sat at his desk, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed over his Union Volleyball polo. “And I didn’t know anything about the Gulf South Conference volleyball.”
Building up a team was going to be a difficult task. He recalls watching the team play for the first time, and thinking to himself that Union University had good volleyball players. The difficulty, he found, would be convincing the girls of that. In the sport of volleyball, as well as many others, there are times when weariness can develop as coaching staff goes through changes – new routines have to be developed with each new coach, new expectations are set, new bonds are built, and then broken every time a new coach becomes an old coach – and sometimes players have been beaten by the game for too long, and simply lose confidence in their ability to compete. McClure found that he had a challenge on his hands.
“I think the only thing that was lacking was a belief – a belief in themselves – and I don’t know if that was from just struggling for a few years or just weary and tired. That happens when you play. So that was quite a bit of a challenge actually,” he said. “We went through a couple of years of just trying to help our players realize that we are good. We are doing things the right way. We are going to get there and it’s a process.”
He decided tackle the rebuilding of the team from the ground up, starting with the details. Although he coached the girls in their skills, he also coached them in taking care of the little things, both in sport and in life. From details like how the net is set up and taken down before and after practice, to things like eating well, getting enough sleep, and paying attention to schoolwork, everything mattered. If the team had a motto it would be, “take care of the little things.” Honing in on every detail served to pour the foundation for future success.
2015 and 2016 both ended with losing records for the Lady Bulldogs, but the gap between wins and losses grew smaller with each year, and a groove seemed to be developing for the team. Over the last few years, the chemistry had been a lacking piece in the rebuilding of the volleyball program that McClure suspects he overlooked, however this year, he believes the team is closer than it has ever been.
The turnover of losing players “actually created an environment where our team grew closer and they really reached out to the incoming new players. We have two transfers on our team this year, and then four freshman. It’s been so neat to see how they have welcomed in those new girls,” he said. “We had expectations of them doing it, but the level to which they did it was amazing. It’s funny because I hear our team say I love you, we love you, all the time, and they say it to me, I say it to them, they say it to each other, and that’s neat.”
Each year as new people were brought in and others left, a sense of camaraderie and love for one another drove the team together, and in the process leaders emerged.
“Leadership is something that kind of happens. Other than the first year here, I don’t vote on captains, I think the team just kind of knows. And that’s where we’ve been this year, we just kind of sat down and said these are people that are captains, and you just kind of feel it, I think,” McClure said.
McClure’s main concern is about the consistency with which the team plays. He foresees the potential for the team’s highs to be really high, possibly even playing as well as they have ever played to this point, but he also believes the girls can fall into trouble in the area of finishing games strongly, and not melting down under the pressure of a losing match, like what happened a few games ago when the Bulldogs lost one set to three against Christian Brothers University.
“Sometimes when you have early success that happens. You think ‘Well maybe we’ve gotten to a point that I didn’t think we’d be there, and maybe I let up a little bit, I know practice was a little different the day before, maybe their mentalities were too, so it was really a wake up call for us, but I think that’s probably one of our weaknesses,” he said.
The 2017 team is fairly young, but it is surprisingly flexible. The players on this year’s team are impressively versatile, able to fill in wherever they are needed on a whim, and to do so with great success.
“One of our strengths is our flexibility. We’ve got kids playing at all different kinds of positions and it’s been really neat to see how they’ve just risen to the occasion and played well.”
Regardless of a few recent losses, the 2017 season looks bright for the Lady Bulldogs. With a current overall, winning record of 9-6, Coach McClure feels confident in his team’s ability to come away with the win.
