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MVB Update - Mick - 01-28-2022

Men's volleyball was quite fortunate in that donors really came through for the MVB program. All three coaching positions are endowed.  Volleyball alums Don Brewster ('79), John McColl ('80), Dave Saeta ('81), Bryan Cameron (MBA '83), the Kissick Family Foundation and the First Point Volleyball Foundation (among many others) really came through.  Marin Gjaja at First Point played VB at Princeton and was an alternate on the U.S. Men's Olympic team at Barcelona in 1992.

So the team's finances are in great shape.  Stanford is still member of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, along with Brigham Young, Concordia, Grand Canyon, Pepperdine, UCLA and USC.  Former MPSF members Northridge State, Hawaii, Long Beach State, UC Irvine, UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara are now members of the Big West.

Like other teams, this year's roster has no frosh.  Starters look to be one redshirt senior, five juniors and two sophomores. They are currently 5-2 with wins over small programs UC Santa Cruz (D3), Vanguard, Lindenwood (2x), a split with #12/#15 UC Irvine, and losses to #10 UC San Diego (straight sets).

Going to be a challenging year to crack the top ten.  Next two years will be interesting.

RE: MVB Update - DC 86 - 01-28-2022

(01-28-2022, 03:48 PM)Mick Wrote:  Men's volleyball was quite fortunate in that donors really came through for the MVB program. All three coaching positions are endowed.  Volleyball alums Don Brewster ('79), John McColl ('80), Dave Saeta ('81), Bryan Cameron (MBA '83), the Kissick Family Foundation and the First Point Volleyball Foundation (among many others) really came through.  Marin Gjaja at First Point played VB at Princeton and was an alternate on the U.S. Men's Olympic team at Barcelona in 1992.

So the team's finances are in great shape.  Stanford is still member of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, along with Brigham Young, Concordia, Grand Canyon, Pepperdine, UCLA and USC.  Former MPSF members Northridge State, Hawaii, Long Beach State, UC Irvine, UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara are now members of the Big West.

That's great news about the program's finances and long term viability.

Why is it that Stanford MVB's historical results (2 national championships, 5 final fours) pale so dramatically compared to WVB (9 national championships, 23 final fours). It seems as if both programs would be recruiting from the same pool so to speak, and there's far more depth of competition on the women's side. Is there a simple answer or a number of factors that have resulted in WVB being so dominant while MVB has often struggled at the top level? Is it a matter of resources which are now being addressed with this fundraising effort?

RE: MVB Update - Mick - 01-28-2022

(01-28-2022, 04:06 PM)DC 86 Wrote:  Why is it that Stanford MVB's historical results (2 national championships, 5 final fours) pale so dramatically compared to WVB (9 national championships, 23 final fours). It seems as if both programs would be recruiting from the same pool so to speak, and there's far more depth of competition on the women's side. Is there a simple answer or a number of factors that have resulted in WVB being so dominant while MVB has often struggled at the top level? Is it a matter of resources which are now being addressed with this fundraising effort?

I don't know the actual answer, but I can give you an educated guess.  Here's a few reasons:

1)  High school girls' volleyball is more closely akin to football than it is to boys' volleyball, in terms of participation.  About 10x the number of girls than boys play in high school.  

2)  The number of girls' competitive clubs dwarve those of boys.  Which leads to surplus of recruitable high school women athletes.

3)  I was peeking over coach Kosty's shoulder at the Junior Olympics one year.  He had the Volleyball Magazine's Top 50 attached to his clipboard.  Four of the names were highlighted.  I asked "Are those the players you really want?"  He replied "Those are the four who can get into Stanford."  I don't think the leading academic lights generally pursue volleyball at the highest level.  And if they do, they have incredible options.

4)  Volleyball players don't really have a chance to earn big money in the pros.  So they may gravitate to programs where they won't have to work as hard, or pay as much.  Recruited volleyball players get a one-quarter scholarship.  That's it.  But the following schools have competitive men's varsity programs, many of which require far less of a time commitment than Stanford: Harvard, Princeton, MIT, NYU, USC, UCLA, UCI, UCSB, UCSD, and UC Santa Cruz.  And as a kicker, Cal has two club teams, one of which plays excellent ball.  They actually recruit at junior tournaments with a pretty compelling sell: an education virtually as strong as Stanford/Harvard/Princeton/MIT but you commit to volleyball 12 hours a week instead of 40.  Since it wasn't a varsity program, my son scrimmaged with that Cal team as a junior in high school.  The setter had been recruited to UCLA and UCSB, but chose to go to Cal and made a very compelling argument to my son as to why he should go to Cal versus Princeton.

Three-time All American libero Gage Worsley (UHawaii) was from Campolindo HS in Moraga, and played in a competitive league. Coach Shibuya probably saw him play 30-40 sets a year for a few years. I knew Worsley's dad, who was a coach. He would have wanted his son to attend Stanford. But it was a door #3 issue.

5) Stanford typically recruits five volleyball players. Let's say that Stanford recruits like crazy and gets the five best players in a year.  Players quit, don't pan out, get injured, transfer, lose interest, etc.  So let's say they get the best players.  They need to have good to great opposing players in a scrimmage to keep the level of competition high. That's difficult to do.

6) Does Stanford have the coaching staff?  Stanford's men's team has Head Coach Kosty, assistant head coach Shibuya and assistant coach Dan Rasay.  That's it.  A team of three.  The women's volleyball team has a team of eight professionals listed on their web site:

a) director of VB Hambly
b) Ass't Coach Johnson
c) Ass't Coach Thompson
d) Volunteer assistant Reinert
e) Technical Coordinator Carr 
f) Ass't Trainer Sicard
g) Sports Performance Coach Friedrich
h) Dir of operations Hambly.  Yes, she's the head coach's wife.  Also has a kinesiology degree.

So those are a few of the reasons.  Training, funding, recruiting, coaching. Coach Kosty will sell that Stanford has been ranked in the Top 15 for 12 of the past 14 years. But there are only 23 D1 teams playing men's volleyball, so...

RE: MVB Update - Softball Fan - 01-28-2022

I was about to post my answer to the question when I saw your post Mick which is way better than what I had to offer.  I agree with your comments.  It's an apples to oranges comparison in regard to recruiting pools.

For some reason volleyball has become an extremely popular girl's youth sport. Ironically it's not popular as a spectator sport at the professional level in this country. There have been quite a few attempts at a women's professional league in the United States. They failed. There are currently two women's leagues recently formed, both of which will fail.

RE: MVB Update - DC 86 - 01-28-2022

(01-28-2022, 04:43 PM)Mick Wrote:  
(01-28-2022, 04:06 PM)DC 86 Wrote:  Why is it that Stanford MVB's historical results (2 national championships, 5 final fours) pale so dramatically compared to WVB (9 national championships, 23 final fours). It seems as if both programs would be recruiting from the same pool so to speak, and there's far more depth of competition on the women's side. Is there a simple answer or a number of factors that have resulted in WVB being so dominant while MVB has often struggled at the top level? Is it a matter of resources which are now being addressed with this fundraising effort?

I don't know the actual answer, but I can give you an educated guess.  Here's a few reasons:

1)  High school girls' volleyball is more closely akin to football than it is to boys' volleyball, in terms of participation.  About 10x the number of girls than boys play in high school.  
2)  The number of girls' competitive clubs dwarve those of boys.  Which leads to...
3)  I was peeking over coach Kosty's shoulder at the Junior Olympics one year.  He had the Volleyball Magazine's Top 50 attached to his clipboard.  Four of the names were highlighted.  I asked "Are those the players you really want?"  He replied "Those are the four who can get into Stanford."  I don't think the leading academic lights generally pursue volleyball at the highest level.  And if they do...
4)  Volleyball players don't really have a chance to earn big money in the pros.  So they may gravitate to programs where they won't have to work as hard, or pay as much.  Recruited volleyball players get a one-quarter scholarship.  That's it.  But the following schools have competitive men's varsity programs, many of which require far less of a time commitment than Stanford: Harvard, Princeton, MIT, NYU, USC, UCLA, UCI, UCSB, UCSD, and UC Santa Cruz.  And as a kicker, Cal has two club teams, one of which plays excellent ball.  They actually recruit at tournaments with a pretty compelling sell: an education virtually as strong as Stanford/Harvard/Princeton/MIT but you commit to volleyball 12 hours a week instead of 40.  Since it wasn't a varsity program, my son scrimmaged with that Cal team as a junior in high school.  The setter had been recruited to UCLA and UCSB, but chose to go to Cal.
5) Let's say that Stanford recruits like crazy and gets the five best players in a year.  Players quit, don't pan out, get injured, transfer, lose interest, etc.  So let's say they get the best players.  Does Stanford have the coach?  Stanford's men's team has Head Coach Kosty, assistant head coach Shibuya and assistant coach Dan Rasay.  That's it.  A team of three.  The women's volleyball team has a team of eight professionals listed on their web site:

a) director of VB Hambly
b) Ass't Coach Johnson
c) Ass't Coach Thompson
d) Volunteer assistant Reinert
e) Technical Coordinator Carr 
f) Ass't Trainer Sicard
g) Sports Performance Coach Friedrich
h) Dir of operations Hambly.  Yes, she's the head coach's wife.  Also has a kinesiology degree.

So those are a few of the reasons.  Training, funding, recruiting, coaching.

Thanks, interesting.

I know girls volleyball participation dwarfs boys volleyball but that in itself shouldn't necessarily disproportionally impact Stanford MVB vis a vis its competitors, except for #3 and #4 which I hadn't thought about and which may be the overriding factors. Admissions: if you can only recruit a small part of the pool you're much more challenged if it's a small pool to begin with; and Pro Careers: if you're an elite female athlete with professional aspirations then volleyball is one of the most realistic paths and Stanford volleyball in particular is worth the required commitment. If you're an elite male athlete with professional aspirations then volleyball is far down the list of sports to play to begin with, and absent the pro motivation other schools may be just as attractive for the reasons you cited.

RE: MVB Update - cardfan77 - 01-28-2022

This team may no be as talented and deep as previous teams but they are playing well together. This team is full of grit and heart. They are fun to watch especially Will Rottman and Justin Lui

RE: MVB Update - Mick - 01-29-2022

(01-28-2022, 08:01 PM)cardfan77 Wrote:  This team may no be as talented and deep as previous teams but they are playing well together. This team is full of grit and heart. They are fun to watch especially Will Rottman and Justin Lui

Three of the sophomores are getting playing time, and right now they're the weaker players.  Hopefully they gel quickly.

This past recruiting class is interesting...one player (Alex Rottman) whose brother is already on Stanford's team and five players from the same club, Bay to Bay, based in Northern California. This is an excellent team, that has already finished third at the national level, with three of them on the Top 25 Underclassmen to watch (Moses Wagner of Bellarmine, Ryan DuRoss from Christopher HS in Gilroy and Luke McFall, Amador Valley -- in 2020) and one of them (Theoren Brouillete, Bellarmine's setter and ) on the Junior Olympic All Tournament Team in 2021. Most of them were on the 2021 U. S. Youth National Team.