Episode #41: Chris Catanach

In this episode of The Significant Coaching Podcast, host Matt Rogers sits down with University of Tampa head volleyball coach Chris Catanach, a true legend in collegiate volleyball. Now in his 40th season, Coach Catanach has built the Spartan program into a perennial powerhouse, with an astonishing 28 Sunshine State Conference titles, 36 NCAA tournament appearances, and four national championships (2006, 2014, 2018, and 2021).

With a career record of 1,169-216 and an .840 winning percentage, Coach Catanach ranks among the all-time greats in both victories and consistency. Tune in to hear about his journey, his approach to building elite teams, and the leadership philosophies that have defined one of the most successful coaching careers in NCAA volleyball history.

🎙️ Learn more about Coach Catanach here.

Transcript

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In this episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Hall of Fame NCAA Division II Women's Volleyball Coach Chris Katanak from the University of Tampa. After 40 years on the sidelines, 28 conference championships, 36 NCAA tournament appearances, 19 trips to the Elite Eight, eight national championship games, and four NCAA national championships. Coach is the active wins leader in all of NCAA Division two with over 1100 wins and an insane average of 30 wins per season. We dove deep into program building, recruiting. He gave great teaching nuggets for how he develops each position. Parents, coaches, you're going to love that. And we even debated the great mystery of the game of volleyball. How in the heck do you pronounce that Position where the girl wears the different jersey than her teammates. Is it Libero or libero coaches take on that will crack you up like it did me. If you're enjoying these conversations, I encourage you to subscribe on your platform of choice and leave me a comment with your thoughts and questions. You can always learn more and schedule with me at coach Matt Rogers. com when you want more information. All right, let's get to it. Here's my conversation with legendary coach, Chris Katnak. Coach, thanks so much for doing this. As I'm looking over your shoulder, I see trophy after trophy. And these aren't trophies that you get for showing up. These are trophies that signify that you were, your teams were the best in the country. I've coached long enough. I know what those trophies, I have very few compared to you. What did they mean to you after all these years? First, let me preface by saying we don't have a trophy case in this building. And they were sitting in boxes after we moved in. And I said, you know what, I'm just going to put some shelves up. And then it turns out to be somewhat intimidating to recruits, but it has worked out well. This weekend we played some matches down south and a couple of my alumni that lived in the area came over the game and I introduced him to my team and then I asked him a question. Hey, can you tell, I asked him to do something. Can you tell them what years you played and what your team did? And, I gave their dates and then ask the kids how many of you were born when I played? And that was cool. So those trophies mean if I go through the years, it's all those kids that played back in the eighties and nineties and early two thousands. Things that they did for this program and what they accomplished. That's what those trophies mean. Absolutely. I led you there cause I knew that's where you'd go, but I don't think people understand that we didn't get into this profession for the trophies. The trophies are just symbolized. What those great kids did together, the relationships that we still have with them and the joy we got from those years together, am I wrong? You're not wrong. And when I leave and in retirement, those trophies won't be going with me. The thought that they don't mean a lot to me, but I'm more like you said, I, the relationships and experiences with the kids and. so much more. I don't want your president. We need t the gym somewhere where w get these out in the publi see and recognize. You kn have a wall, each team ha where they put up accompl I take some pride in it b the american flag o wall. So every one Say their pledge to the to the law and it's got everything on there that we've done. So yeah, it's cool, but that's great. That's great. What a recruiting advantage. Not that you need it coach. I started this podcast for me, I got out of coaching when I had my two kids, it was just, it became too much for my wife to her job at the time. And for me, this is my opportunity to get my coaching Jones in. And I'm always intrigued. With somebody like you who's done this for so long and done it at such a high level. So much has changed in 40 years. I would imagine you didn't recruit a kid without just seeing them live. Or maybe you talk to a high school coach to go a local coach. And now you can watch a kid play in Australia on your phone. So I'm curious, I'm going to go a different direction. If I dropped you in a small division three in Iowa, and they were going to build their volleyball program from scratch, and I said, coach, we want to build this program, where would you start today? The cool thing about volleyball is we have a really developed club system. All right. And that's really where you start. And I would actually start at the Iowa, anything, any club events in Iowa, I'd be looking for those kids that are. In my backyard first. And then you'd extend out within, close proximity to your school another state within decent proximity. I'm not gonna go to florida looking for kids to go to D three in Iowa and pay their way. But that's how it started. So club has changed recruiting and volleyball. I know, and I know A. U. Basketball exists and some other things, but not at the level of the club. Volleyball is just a unbelievable, um, organization in many ways. It's also unbelievable in the sense that you can't believe that people are still doing it because it's crazy, but that is, that's the start. I have a 15 year old daughter who's in her sixth year of club, so I'm a club dad. So trust me you're you're preaching to the choir here. Yeah, another three years, three, four. And yeah. I'm just, I'm begging anybody with your power and your knowledge and experience to just say, all right, let's stop with the club in November, December, let's start club in January, February, maybe we end it in May. And just shorten it a little bit. That's what I'm begging somebody to propose. What's that? It's the money. People, you'd start with the kids. You'd start with the kids to build that. And I, it's the same way I did. And I bring it up because My good friend is the president of the University of Ozarks, and they're starting a volleyball program this year. This is the first time they've had volleyball because their gym ceiling is about six inches too short. And now the conference they're in has said, okay, we're going to let you play. We're going to let you start volleyball. We're not going to care about that. So I'm really intrigued with that from a logistics standpoint. I don't know what your budget looks like, but when I was a D2 coach I had maybe 5, 000 that I could use to actually recruit with where, we could travel, get into events, pay plane ticket, maybe a couple of hotel rooms. How do you attack club from your level at Tampa? I'll tell you, I coached club for 20 something years and I did it because I had no money and I. It was my opportunity to have my travel paid for. I could go to the big events and I could, recruit. It was very difficult to coach and then try to recruit, but. But at least I was out there. In this day and age, we are very regional at Tampa in our recruiting in club, but we have multiple qualifiers within our region. So we have these kids coming in from all over that we can see. And being in Florida, we invite kids on the campus. That's number one. We get them on our campus. We we we have to turn them away. It's almost everybody. Now we're not talking if we have a power five or just a sub power five kid on, they see the same bells and whistles elsewhere, but So if we get them on campus, we have a great shot. In fact, I'll tell you, we have our lacrosse coach. He came in from a school in North Carolina, South Carolina, limestone. And he's, he's won multiple championships. He won one just after he got here. And he said, coach what's your recruiting pitch, and I'm like I'll be honest with you. We just walk campus and and I'm bragging, but he said the same thing. He goes, man, I just walked these guys around the campus and then walked back to my office. Like, where do I sign? You can't sign until November, we'll take you kind of thing. But yeah, it's very helpful. That's our president built a a place that is very attractive to kids now from all over the country. And our academics match it. So it's been pretty cool. That's great. And it's, and it makes such a big difference when you have, a president and an administration that understands the value of athletics. You're seeing so many schools shut their doors across the country. And I think a lot of it is they lost the direction of when you have student athletes on campus, you have kids that really care about your community. They're going to be there for four years. They're not going anywhere. They've got a support system on campus. They have immediate friends. And when. When they have that big a group already, everybody wants to be a part of it. I'm sure everybody wants to come to your games. Everybody wants to be friends with your girls because of their, of the culture you've built, there's some positives there, but to be honest with you, COVID exposed the fact that universities don't need athletics to exist you have, it's all about the education and the degree. The beautiful thing is most schools that offer. Division two, division three athletics seed of value in developing or providing development opportunities for these kids. And so we have, we have 550 student athletes here. So we're a small percentage of our campus now, even about 11, 000 students. So we're not as big an impact, but there's 550 people we're turning out that are so committed to the university of Tampa. They come back there. And in division two and division three those kids are the ones that are probably giving back financially to their schools. Yeah. Vision one. It's not always that case. A lot of them are going pro or whatever, and maybe a little different, but yeah, we are producing some really special kids, but also kids that are just committed to our school, that's where I was going to is. When you're an athlete, school is much more than just going to class school is, you're learning discipline, you're learning how to deal with a loss, you're learning how to deal when you don't make that starting team, you're dealing with those conflicts of she's my best friend, but she's got a starting job and I don't yet, and having to deal with that back in the dorm and the back of the apartment and what that does for your future as somebody that's going to teach or be in business is really amazing. What did you do back in 1984? To start building that culture. And I hate to take you back that far, but I'm sure there's a lot of similarities to what you're doing today or if some of those cultural things had to change I'm going to be, I just, I'm one of those people, I'm straight out, honest, please, an 84, probably 84 through early nineties. I didn't even have a clue about that aspect of a program. I didn't work for anybody before I got my job. I was a student assistant, but I'm a grunt. I wasn't like, I didn't come through the process, so It took me a number of years to figure out that I needed to do much more than just, run practice and, try to win games. There's much to it. And the, it's changed so much. The kids I talk about it now, I don't know if they're mental health issues back in the eighties or in your years of coaching. Nowadays, it's 50 percent of your team needs to see somebody. And I don't know what's contributed to it. It may be always existed and it just never showed its head. But yeah I finally got to that point in the nineties where I realized I've got to do more than what I'm doing and make it more of a, an experience. For example, we commit to taking our kids overseas every four years. We've gone on five trips. To us it's bigger than just winning championships. It's changing their lives. And most of our kids that have gone overseas, when they come back within a few months, you can just see their world got so much bigger, it wasn't just their hometown or Tampa area. It was the world. And so that's a cool thing that we've tried to do as a division two program, which is costly, but worth the expense and worth the fundraising. And it also builds culture. The kids. Really look forward to that opportunity. And because of COVID, we had a couple of kids that went twice. That's great. That's a rarity, but the second time they go, they had no eligibility left, so they were just on vacation. But anyway yeah, I think all over the country, programs, colleges figured out that we needed to build a culture. This is a Division II, Division III. You look at the old UCLA days. I think that wouldn't obviously was one of the first to build a true culture and how it did it. A lot of programs were more of a, it's all about winning and we don't care about you other than that, and you just can't survive in this day and age without providing them with more than just volleyball, more than just school. Yeah. When you talk to the women that played for you in the eighties and nineties and you talk to the women that have played for you over the last 10, 15 years, do they have a different perception of you, Yeah. They all the only ones tell me how soft I've gotten. Oh, you're so nice to everybody. I do. I do know that I figured out I had to change in time and the kids aren't really that different. I think they work as hard or harder. I don't see a difference there, but how you deal with them is obviously changed. And and that was important to grow with that, and my assistant, so I've got an assistant now, Brian who is, he's been tremendous for our culture and he's helped me grow and it will be much more aware. Obviously social media. I don't have any of those accounts. I do have a Facebook account, but I don't use it. I just totally rely on him to handle all that stuff. Cause it's just not something I want to do, but I realized that's where you got to communicate with the kids. He's been with you a long time, right? This is his 10th or 11th year. I had a gentleman, he's on our beach coach, Jeff lamb. He's been here since 2000 2000, 2001, I think. And he was with me for about 19 years. And then we were able to get him that beach head beach job, which is best job in the world. Do you have any crossover there? No I helped start the program and but I made it clear early that I wasn't starting it so I can coach two teams. And We thought maybe we were going to be able to grab an elite athlete here and there that would come and play both sports for us, but maybe didn't get that opportunity in division one, but that, that, that window passed. It's we're not really producing any, we have a couple of duels, but it's just kids we've allowed to play beach but they're not coming here because of beach. I would imagine at your level with your calendar that you have. try and get done in the s be a challenge for you to I think division two, we calendar in the spring no and it does work to allow them to play. I'll give you an example. When we started the beach program, we let anybody that wanted to play to help develop it. So in 2017 the spring we excuse me, in 2020 in the spring, we had four kids indoor that we were doing individual stuff with. And then we won a national championship in 2018. You're like, okay, who needs a spring? You just need busy, but we don't have much crossover. It's just hard to, very difficult to, like you said, build a culture and keep a culture going when your kids are not with you, when you look at the kids that come into your program, what are typically the things that you hope you've recruited, the things that you've identified, but what are the things that an 18 year old struggles with when they get to you? What are the things that you really have to teach more times than not? Club volleyball is great. They play a lot of matches. I think it's true. I know it's true in AAU basketball. It's the only one I can relate to. Our men's basketball coach talks about it all the time. The kids. The kids play a lot, but they don't learn. They don't actually learn the game at the level they need to. And it's not a slight on the club coaches or AU coaches. Just little things like in volleyball, there's, there's six rotations. You're learning that with your daughter. It seems like a simple game, but it's actually somewhat complicated. You have to understand how the rotations work so that you can align yourself correctly. Instead of memorizing where you are each time you rotate, a little things like that and understanding angles and where to attack. And we find that a lot of the kids we get, even if they're coming from an elite club are surprisingly not elite educated. And and then when they get here, they, there is a learning curve and this is, I'm not just talking to our division, but there's a lot of division two programs where these kids don't just come in and take over, So I also find that, um, they don't we're going for high academic kids and it's not, we're not unique in that, but because of our structure and division two we can, pair scholarships together, academic and athletic to create a package and, Our school has reduced the aid that goes to any kids that are under a 3. 6. So we can't really afford to get those kids. So we're going for the three, eight, three, nine kids. And those kids are going to come in with unique problems. They're extremely driven in the classroom and their stress level is always very high because they're trying to maintain a. 4038, whatever it might be that we're working on and yet they're driven on the court and it's like, they got to start, they got to play. I'm not saying kids with lower GPAs are not driven like that, but it just seems we're finding more and more kids that their drive is it's awesome in many ways, but it's really difficult to maintain. And and keep them sane, used the phrase with parents and recruits, coaches want a Mercedes they can get for the cost of a Ford with the idea of. You got really good grades. If you're a three eight and you have a 28 ACT, the school's going to take care of a big chunk of that tuition that you don't have to take care of. All of a sudden now your budget is better. You have a little bit more money to spend because you have these high academic kids and you have a little bit more freedom and flexibility to really build a bigger, more dense athletic roster. Am I wrong? No, you're exactly right. Division 2 is limited. We run, we're using equivalencies. Like Division 1 sports that use equivalents are baseball, soccer, those are equivalency sports. So you then pair up your scholarships. But Division 2, everything's an equivalency. And you're trying to utilize as much academic money or other aid that doesn't count for your equivalency to build as good as you can. Deeper roster as you can. And we were talking about on the ride back last night, we came back up from Palm beach last night. And we've got probably the deepest roster we've had. I'm not going to say our roster is all elite, all American players, but within our program, it's the deepest it's been, and it's, we now have some difficult relationship issues because Kids that were starting that maybe aren't starting right now are a little freaked out. We've never experienced that. And but that's because of the financial structure. We've been able to put 16 kids on the floor now. Not all are on big money, but we've got 16 kids on the floor. On the team that are pretty darn good. So it's a double edged sword because I'm sure your practices are extremely intense because there's talent on both sides. It's pretty balanced, but now you've got now you're dealing with the egos and the mental approach even more, right? Yeah, I think we're not, we're not a division one program, but I think we've been able to build a roster that's similar in division one where they've got a lot of good players and a lot of tough decisions, so everything, we're going to turn out some report cards from that are all statistic based. So just to help us. Help them understand the decision process. And but yeah it's been, I've had large rosters in the past, back in the early two thousands university was struggling and we needed students, so we'd carry a bigger roster and you'd have practices where you have four or five kids and you just can't put in certain drills. How now I don't have that, but It does make it more difficult for both sides if they're not getting the amount of time they want, so good and bad. It's something that, I think the higher level division one, they deal with all the time because like division one basketball, I don't know how it was for you, but every kid thinks you're gonna play pro men's player thinks you're gonna play pro basketball. I'm 50 years old. I still think I got you. I still think the bulls are going to call me tomorrow. I'm with you. That's funny. Got You're familiar with Nebraska volleyball, right? Yes. And even in the late 90s, or mid 90s, late 90s, it was still, and I had two kids from Nebraska, and one of the players would tell me, Coach, if Nebraska calls tomorrow, I'm out of here. Oh, yeah. She wasn't athletically good enough, but she was she had that, that love for it. Like you said, we all think we're going to go to that next level. Yeah. At the end of the day it's a funny statement, but you want those kids, you want that kid that says, give me the challenge. it out. I love that. I have so many, and I'm going to say parents, but probably 90 percent are moms that list of this podcast. And there's a huge volleyball mom contingency on online that This is the, so I, I love having volleyball coaches on, cause they have so many questions about what a college coach is looking for and how they evaluate when you go to these club matches, and we were in Atlanta last year and I know you've been to this facility I'm talking about and there's 145 courts. I, it took us a mile to walk in and walk to my daughter's game the first time and there's so many kids. And I'm a college co, I'm a college evaluator and it's just funny, I'm walking past a court and we're walking somewhere and I just stopped'cause there's a kid on the court that I, it just. Took my brother away. It may be the swing that she took and the height that she get and the elbow and the angle. And I just went, wow. And I stopped. And my first thought was I got to look around and sure enough, there's probably 12 visual on division two coaches. Standing around the court for you, what catches your eye when you're in that type of facility? Because I'm assuming you obviously don't go there with a blank sheet of paper. There's 20 girls that you know are gonna be there and you're going there to watch them so you don't have to travel all over the place. But what catches your eye when you're walking around and watching games? Lemme tell you. You might be familiar with this, but we have a recruiting program called university athlete and you tag kids ahead of time and then it spits out a schedule for you. So you walk around and try to evaluate the kids that wrote you, because, that, that starts with one. We don't always want to go after kids that don't know who we are. So that's a difficult start. But when you're looking at and you're looking for the athlete, you're trying to evaluate a kid, like you said, kids that catch your eye just on a swing or a block or something they do or a defensive play that they make, you stop and you look to see, can they do it again? But for us at division two, and you can tell moms this A division two we then go. Okay, that kid's a no brainer. We're not getting her But there's got to be other kids on this floor. Let's see who competes against her, or competes with her And some of the sights and sounds you want to hear, it's the sound of the contact, how they hit the ball. You can just hear the difference when a kid is a division one, like power five, the ball is it and makes a sound that you don't have with other kids. So you're looking for a great arm, you're also, we're not going to get a 6, 6, 2, 6, 3, totally developed, kid. So we're looking for a 5, 10 to 5, 11, 6 foot, maybe kid that jumps really well, that still has some development to make. And that's that kid that Division 2 is trying to grab. You then, after that, after you've seen, you said, okay, this is an athlete that we, you We think could help our program. Then you're looking for the, all the intangibles, what kind of teammate are they I'll tell you my last three my 2014 championship. I actually had the best physical group I've ever had and they were physically dominant and that's why we won. We weren't near the team we were in 2018. That was a really good, bonded team. And then 2021, the same thing. Those two teams weren't the best collection of athletes. I don't know that we were physically better than any team we played in the championships, but we had a bond. And so that is the big thing. We're looking for a kid that has the intangibles and we might go with a lesser athlete there. As long as we've got the great teammate kid great culture kid, so that's, that would be the next phase. And that's as, as important to us as the athletic phase. We're looking to see how they treat their parents. You got a lot of moms on here. And my wife, she was a club mom for kind of about twice the length you were, cause we had two daughters, they're trying to make sure every, they have everything they need and kids are holding up their water bottle. I need more water. I need more catering. We're watching that stuff because it is important, and when they come on campus, we watch how they. They interact with their siblings, younger siblings, and because again, those are teammates, those are, those are, if you treat them bad, you're treating your teammates bad, if you treat your mom and dad bad, you're treating your coach bad. Those are the next phase. And we really want parents, like when they come on campus, we usually split them up the parents and the kids. But I'm a, I'm an old guy, 41 years of coaching. I don't hold back with the parents at the end of the thing. I'll tell them straight out. On your next visit, you need to take a back seat. You need to put your daughter up front. Let her do the talking because there's no, you get a kid in here and you ask him a question and they look at their mom and then the mom will answer it or the mom will jump in or the dad. And you're going, okay, you got to stop this. This kid is not someone I want in here and she can't speak for herself. And those are important intangibles that we need to see. And you don't see it out of the tournament, but you do see how they interact with their parents and the other kids. So absolutely. Cause I'll look at mom and I'll go, I'm sorry. I only have one spot. I can't take you both. Yeah. Yeah. Which one of you is gonna answer my question?'cause that's the one I'm gonna recruit So I know what you're talking about. It there's a fine line between entitlement and a kid that simply can't take care of themselves. And are there red flags for you? I know you just talked about a couple of those. Are there red flags for you where you're like, dad, stop here. We can't take this kid, because you've been through it. Yeah. I think you, you probably felt the same way when you're coaching. You just get, you get a certain feel of a kid after you watch them. That's why it's so critical to see them live. You can't see this stuff on tape, and listen, I've, in my years, I've taken many kids because I thought they were an athlete that I could train and make, into a stunt player. That's going to help us win championships. And I failed because they turned out not to be a great teammate and we struggled there. Finding out the important intangibles. That happens during watching them longer and, which is difficult, like you said, you're at, 145 courts in the Big South and you're trying to go evaluate kids. Can you really evaluate the tendrils? No, you got to at least look at the athletic side first. That's right. Where they fit, but so that becomes difficult. Even on visits, we, it's not like we have kids on campus five, six times, so you can't actually see the tendrils. Who they really are. And conversely, for the kids benefit, they don't really see who the coach is or the team is. They're just taking as much of a gamble as you are, kids ask me all the time. What is your coaching style? I was like, Oh, I can tell you anything you want to hear, but I want you to talk to the kids, ask my players and find out what they think my style is like. And if you like it, great, but and that's the same thing with the kids. We can sit there and ask them, Hey, what's your playing style? They can tell us anything we want. We got to see it. And we've got to actually, when you're watching, they're always watching you too. I always tell kids don't look around and see who's watching you. It doesn't bode well. It doesn't look, I want you so focused. You don't even know we're there. That's right. Play for your team, play for your coach. Not for me. Yeah. I had a, we had a kid that was recently in our program and the club coaches came to me, I watched her play. She was a Florida kids. I watched her play. A zillion times and they came to me and they said, coach, you've got to be at every one of our important matches. I said, why? Because she doesn't play hard unless you're there. Oh, that's the worst thing to tell a college coach. Red flag. My flag went up, but I'd already committed, and but at least I knew that going in. Cause man, when she was here, I just had to stay on her. It was true. She was she was good when I was watching it. And when I would leave, I said she just wouldn't get out. She played club for 30 years. So she was probably sick a bit, but yeah. So I'm interested. I wrote this in my book cause it was true that when I call a high school coach about a recruit or a club coach, and want my last question to when I called a coach was. Tell me about Tina's parents and if there was more than a three second pause, I would go, Hey coach, thanks. We're not going to recruit Tina. But if you have any players down the road, don't be afraid to call, there's a little hyperbole to that, but do you have a philosophy on parents when you're recruiting a girl? I haven't, I don't think I've had many recruits that aren't just a a chip off the old block. I will say I've had kids in the program that I said, you know what, I'm taking the kid anyway, but boy, are we going to have hell with mom and dad and they turned out to be exactly that. You, they don't just change them in here. Now I do have this thing you probably put in your book or you've thought about it, the older you are, the more that parents stay away from you, my early years, I'd get beat up all the time, but I always tell people they don't come near me. I'm older than all of them, and they're afraid of, but we do tell them from the day they arrive in our opening little session with the parents. We say, you can call me to ask me where you're, what hotel we're staying in, what time we're going to get there, where we're eating dinner, but you can't ask me how your daughter's doing. Why is she not playing? Years ago I took this young lady this is interesting. So she was a descendant of I'm not going to do an Indian tribe or anything like that, but she had, she was a descendant of an Indian tribe that we had an endowment for that we had never been able to use. So admissions calls me up and said, this kid is coming on campus. She happens to play volleyball. We'd like to use this. So now we form, would you come meet her? So I went over and I listened. I wanted to gain some favor because we needed some financial support. So I just said, I met the kid and said, come on down, come to UT. And so she gets here and she's a decent athlete, but she's not near the level of my team, but I'm like, okay, this is going to pay off somewhere else. The mom calls me after one year and says my daughter plays pick up in the summer with all these division one players and these guys and she's so good and she's not even playing at your place and that was it. I said to her, I said, you've just ruined the relationship. This can't work. She's now got a transfer. Oh no. She loves it there. She loves it there. I said how's this going to work? You're questioning how we're doing things. I'm not inviting you to practice every day, but I see something in practice every day that you don't see. And, so to me, that's the parents that in a club kid and if the parents are too involved, like you said, if there's a three, four second pause by the high school coach, you are starting to wonder, is this worth it? Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think, and I'm, I'm the kettle here, cause I'm a club dad, but I've been a college coach for so long. I'm not sure the club coach understands my only frustration is that my daughter's not working hard enough. Yeah, you know that she's taking plays off or she's not down in the stance. That's My frustration's never with the coach because I know my daughter could fix a lot of these problems And maintaining her attitude. So I it's it's been very humbling for me To be a dad of an athlete, because I was a head college coach for 12 years before I had a child, so for me, it was being a dad was after the fact after I'd been doing it for a long time. So it was, it's interesting. So I'm sitting in my office. This is a while ago. This is about seven, eight years ago. And this is early summer, and nobody's around sitting in my office. I hear this knock on the door and there's this young kid. She's 16 years old, says coach. Hi, I'm so and I'd like to talk to you about your program. And I look at her and I go where are your parents? And she goes they're right outside. And I said, no, don't you want them in here? She goes, I want my parents out there. I was like, I hope this kid is really good. I really do. I need this kid. And to me, that's impressive. I love it. That's what moms and dads need to learn. And you're welcome in my office, but if you just come in and sit down and let her do the thing, her thing, she's going to have a much better shot at any division one, two, or three school. I'm going to cut that part out of the podcast and I'm going to put it on every social media site I can find because I think you've hit it on the head about and I teach this, I tell kids, if you're going to do this, you have to be the CEO, you have to be the boss of this journey. If mom and dad have to be your marketing director mom and dad have to be your speaker. I go, we're already done. This isn't good. I'm not the right guy to help you. And because I can't tell coaches to recruit you or look at you or evaluate you when I already know the problems that they're going to have. I'm not going to send, I'm not going to send a college coach, a kid when I already know I wouldn't want to recruit that kid and so I love the fact that's so important to you. And that's great. I want to go back to evaluation. I think we, it's real easy. And it was easy for me as a basketball coach to talk about the bigs, because there were so hard to find talented bigs that could do the things that you wanted them to do at your level. And that 5'6 Lib, that 5'7 DS, that, you know, that 5'3 kid, there's so many of them out there. And oftentimes, I'm sure the Lib and the DS is oftentimes the last kid you recruit. That's an apparel position is more important than, I don't know, it's one of the most important darn positions out there. It is. And so it's not the last. Now, what I will say is there's so many of them that the additional DSs and liberals that you bring in are the last ones, they fill up the roster but yeah, correct. My you're you hit it. Thank you for correcting me. So what are you looking for? Because there's so many of them, what are you looking for that? Fits. What you want to do in terms of protecting your hitters, protecting your blockers, getting to the space on the floor to keep the ball alive. What are those things that just really stand out to you? I'll get in the DSL and arrow position. Yes, sir. Size isn't the number one fact, like I don't care what the vertical jump is. And I do want quickness obviously, and they've got to be a decent athlete. But size can be really beneficial if they move pretty well and they have good range because they're five foot, eight, five foot nine. Like our current Leroy's five, two. And she's a workaholic hustler. She's, but she does have limitations in size, so that, that. I'm not, again if you look at Lexi Rodriguez, she's at Nebraska. She's tiny as players go, but she just reads so well and moves so well. But so you overlook all that. But man, you're looking for effort level kids that, um, they make up for their size by effort level. You're looking for that communicator. Those kids that are great communicators. They're like the glue and they anchor the defense and they're constantly slapping hands. That's what I'm saying. And giving out, some instructions on who's got what ball and great effort plays and great swing. They, you just need that kid that's man, they're more than just the bigger and the passer. So on the physical side, if you can get a kid, that's, it's a passes on a three scale, they're passing a two, two to two, five. You're pretty good. If they're above that, you're just like, okay, I got to have this kid. And So I'll give you an example. In 2018, we moved an outside hitter to the Leroy position, and she was a phenomenal passer, but she was not an offender at a high enough level. So we had a kid in here that was a freshman, and we played her as a DS. Now there's the new rule. You can use two Leroys. And that was, man, if that, if I had that year, we would have been even better because I could have put one in on defense and one in on servicing. And so there's always, I don't know that every liberal has both skills. Some of them are better defenders than passers, but. If you can find one that are pretty competent and competent in both and have that motor and effort level, then you are in business, and plus they, they have to be competitive as, as all get out, even though they're never actually scoring the point they're competitive about their investment in the point. I love that. Yeah. That's such good instruction for me as a dad, cause those are the things we preached to my daughter too. She's a lib and she's great. With her energy, she's great with support, but it's the act, it's the active in understanding how to read and react and read the angle of that ball, read the angle of that arm before it comes down. So that's a really great message for a lot of kids. Now, can you cause I've already heard you say it twice. Can you break this argument in my house? Is it libero or libero? So I believe that I thought it was a a Latin word. So I thought it was libero. So I, I sometimes say libero. We've gotten to the point where we just say, bro, we just call them all bros. But I don't know that you can, it depends on who you talk to on the pronunciation of it. But I think if you looked it up in in the way it should be said phonetically, In a Latin or Italian. Okay. Language is LiRo, but I don't know. That's a good one. We watch so much volleyball in my house and we watch it at all levels.'cause my niece is the head volleyball coach at University of Wisconsin Platteville. So we watch her team and we watch as much D two at D one and obviously the Olympics and every other game, the announcers will say it a different way. It's just we never know if we're saying it right or not. So it's great to hear you say Libero, cause obviously you've bought into that and you've heard it enough and I say libero as much as I say Libero, it's just, however it rolls off the tongue, Oh, that's great. That, that position good or bad, there's so many kids vying for that position that the competition is pretty unreal. Then again, if you have all those intangibles, we talked about. There's a place for those kids. We make every team better. And if it's not in every match, it's in every practice. And you look at some of these college teams that have just phenomenal bros. That, um, you start out the match not even knowing who the heck they are, but by halfway you're like, wow, so they have a significant part of the team. Program is just the competition for opportunities are pretty intense because there's so many of them and a lot of kids get directed there because of their sides. That's right. This is something I've had to learn. Cause you know, I was a basketball coach for so long, volleyball has become our life because we were in a gym so much watching and I'm, and I'm constantly bumping and passing with my daughter and, working with her. Cause. Her little brother's not going to do it. So it's me. So I'm excited to hear some of these things from you because she's hearing it from coaches and she's hearing it from club and high school. And I'm going to have her listen to this because some of these things just need to be hammered home. That your energy is so important to what your team's doing. And you're right. I, it's rare. When I, we get done watching a game anywhere on TV or live. We're not talking about the lib. Yeah. Because the whole idea is the ball can't hit the floor, and it seems like the lib keeps every play alive, and that's how you winning at points. You're giving your hitters another swing. Yeah. It's they take a section of the court that is just so important. Most of them, most programs play the li the bro or the jersey. They, they talk about they're gonna wear the jersey. They play them on that left back position, digging that hard cross court ball. Yeah, it's if you get in against a really good team, they will not serve the bro. Because they pass so well. And then, we've played teams, we played against this team in our conference that had a Brazilian girl that was so good that our whole game plan was you couldn't hit it in her direction. Everybody else was going to break down, but you just didn't make the mistake. Tactically, you want to take a team out of system. You play the first ball to the center and our game plan. And I've never, we've never really, I'm sure people do it, but we were just like, this is an error. If you hit it in that direction, it's an error. Don't do it. She was that good. Could have played many levels. She just ended up at the school in our conference and, And that's what the bro wants to be. They take so much court that you can decrease what the others have to dig and that makes them better than the range in previous. So yeah, I agree with you on a much, I look for a good bro to see how they changed the game and it falls alive. And I'm ever seeing a mattress and I can't remember who the teams were. That the. One girl, I've never heard of her. By the end of the match, she was, I thought the best player. That's amazing. And the more we talk, the more I think about how I recruit from a basketball perspective. I'm constantly looking for that offensive rebounder with the same mentality, I want extra possessions. I, great. We got a hit, got blocked, got it back. I want that extra possession. I want that extra swing. I want that extra shot. And it's funny how that I always set my staff out. Find me a junkyard dog. Find me that kid that's going to break the chain to go do what they need to do to get the job done. It sounds like when you think of bros and jerseys, that's what you're looking for too. Yeah. Yeah. Penn State was one of the first programs that was bringing in four or five kids. Yeah, I remember getting a call from a club director whose daughter, one of his kids was offered a two year scholarship at Penn State and she was a pretty phenomenal kid. And he's this isn't right, and I said, listen, They sequence them. They've got kids that are only getting it two years because they've got so many good ones and it's just how it's going to be. She'll earn it by her junior year and have it for two years and the next kid picks it up for her junior year. But Penn State was, and Florida does, and a lot of schools now carry four or five DSs in their program. And man, it's a competition all the time. And we've done it, in some of our drills where, um, if a ball hits the floor anywhere near them, you're out and you get back in line, you're in line behind, two bros waiting to go on. And it creates this effort level that is just nonstop. And again you want kids that can pass and keep balls alive, but keep them accurately alive, somewhere In the target area where you can run some offense out of there. And if you just get kids and keep them alive, you can teach them a little bit more about how to angle their arms to get that ball where it needs to go, but they've got to have that in inside effort, that, that motor inside that you can't teach. And usually listen, most pros are high academic kids. I've, I find that there are a lot of high academic kids driven and realize the competition they have. Also realize that. There's usually only one scholarship per program, so I've got to try to earn that or I'm going to walk on and just the life they lead, they are, they're very unique and are becoming more and more unique as you go. I'm intrigued by, if you just go by position, is there one thing that you find yourself repeating in practice? Like to your lib, to your hitter, to your middle, to your setter, is there just and this goes back to what we talked about earlier about kids and their mental state. Are you, are there things that you find yourself, because I'm constantly yelling at my daughter about her feet. I go, if you, if your feet can't get to the ball, you're going to be reaching, you're going to be lunging, get your feet there first. And maybe that's the wrong approach to take with her. But for me, it goes back to defense. If I can keep my feet in front of a ball handler, I got a shot to stop him. If I can get my feet in front of a ball, are there things like that? That you're, you find yourself teaching constantly and repeating to get them mentally focused. I think we do this thing now it's called I don't call it anything, but Red light, green light. We all did that when we were a kid, you had to be stopped when the person turned around and then you could go and you had to be stopped. And that's, that is to me, one of the things that all kids are doing. They're still moving while contacts are happening. So that is the one thing. Because you have a blocker that has the same movement, you have hitters that drop back on defense, you have the bro, you have the setter. We are, and it's an ongoing process. They need to be stopped prior to any contact. So like we're talking about red light, green light, you're going to move into coverage until just before contact, and then you're going to stop. And then after contact, you're going to move again, and then you're going to stop. And that is critical because kids are moving and they can't change directions on a deflection. It's a game of angles. It's right. Hardly ever doesn't touch somebody else, the block or whatever, and change directions and you need to be stopped. So that is to me, the one thing that I could spend or I still spend trying to teach my kids. And again, we're doing, we have a drill called trap tips, rolls, and pushes. We do that as a. We only do it for eight or nine minutes of practice, and it is all focused on transition, coverage communication, but red light, green light, constantly calling out, running the coverage, but be stopped prior to contact because if you're still moving forward as the balls hit, it's going to get rebounded off the block and it's coming back at you as fast as you're moving forward. So I just started one day using the term, Hey, did anybody play red light, green light when you're growing up? That's, that's what we need. That's such a great analogy, coach. I love that. That's so smart that gets my brain. Now I can't wait to watch another volleyball game because I want to see that it reminds me and it's ironic. Are you a Rays fan? I am not a baseball fan in general. So it's it's not important, but I saw a clip probably a year ago. They showed the angle was, so you could see the third baseman, the shortstop, and the second baseman for the Tampa Bay race. And the pitcher's about to throw the ball. And the three kid, the three kids in the infield before the ball's released, all jumped and got into system at the same time. It, and they showed it for three pitches in a row and it was exact, they were teaching it that red light, green light philosophy from a baseball perspective for defense. Yeah, so it's such a smart way to watch volleyball. Are the kids coming to that stop? So they can go different directions. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, even in basketball, you're constantly moving. But if a kid is jumping side to side, the offensive player on defense, the offensive player is gonna wait till they're making that move. They can go the other way. There's still a stop there, with volleyball for the longest time. And I'm as guilty. We were teaching kids, you move from that, yeah. I'm sure your daughter, does she play left back as a little bit? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So she's in that base and they probably have her up around the three meter line because she's going to pick up a dump from the center. Yeah. But go dig. She now, she has a lot of movement to get to her dig position. Yeah. But the higher the level you go, watch for this on the higher levels. Look at the defenders. All they do is turn and face. So the red light green light concept is still there. There's less movement. So we call it less is more. We want less moving on defense because you have more time to read because you really can't read while you're running. People say we do, but it can't. So yeah, red light, green light, less is more, but be stopped prior to contact. And just turn and face diggers trying to, she might be trying to run back and dig the line, right? And she's still moving in the kid tips the ball. So her mouth is going backwards and where you just want her to be turned and stopped ready to go any direction. Oh, that's such great talk coach. And it's funny if you were in my basketball gym last 25 years, you would almost hear me speaking defensively. Almost identically because I want kids on the rim line. I want them in the middle of the court when they're two passes away because I don't want them to be dealing with screens. I don't want them to get caught up in the motion. I want them to be able to read what's happening so they can react and adjust to get to the passing lane faster. So the similarities there are something I've never thought about from the volleyball side. And you just said it exists in baseball. It exists in every sport, in my opinion. You've given me great time, coach. I got three more questions I want to hit with you. I talk so much about multi sport athletes, keeping kids healthy. You talked about the club, we've talked about club and the time between high school and club season. How do you feel about multi sport athletes? I encourage parents not to be bullied into specializing. I, if we get a kid that's played, volleyball and basketball and volleyball, here's my old, if I had another child I would say I'm going to have that kid in gymnastics, really young swimmer at some point for full body strength for volleyball. I want him to have played maybe some softball, some flag football now, baseball, whatever they're allowed to play. I want to learn how to throw properly. In fact, I tell dads all the time. I don't know if you remember Josh Freeman. He was a quarterback for the Buccaneers. Oh yeah. Yeah, the younger sister. And it was he was here at Tampa. And so we brought her in, but The dad, I said to the dad, I said, we really need to work on her arm because well, how can I do that? I said take her in the backyard and throw with her just like you did with your son, And I tell parents all the time go throw with your daughter man Just throw so she learns proper throwing technique and that's basically hitting motion. So yeah, but yeah, it's I forget what your question because I'm sorry, I'll play sport, but you love kids that are doing lots of things and yeah, when we get an email from a kid, I've played volleyball for 10 years, but no other sport I'm not saying I don't look at him, but it doesn't impress me when I get a kid that is playing multiple sports and finding a way to do it. But I understand by the time they get into high school, they probably can't play volleyball, basketball. Yeah. They might play volleyball and softball. I still, I think there's nothing better than them developing the cross sport, mentality. And I think you can learn a ton. And I'll give you a little story. There's a basketball coach in our conference. He was at barry university and his son grew up playing volleyball and basketball. I used to play. I played volleyball with the coach and his son grew up, played volleyball, basketball. His son ended up going to Boston College 67, but he had phenomenal timing for rebounding and blocking. And his dad said he learned that in volleyball. And it's so true. I've been taking a ball for a long time and I always found my timing to be really good, but it was because volleyball, if you watch the blocking, you have to time when you jump in your peak. And so there's a lot of crossover in sports. And so dual athletes or triple sport athletes they're invaluable. But the club business, as you understand it. They want you taking private lessons, they want you putting all your time in. That's right. I don't think, I think it's better to play some multiple sports than putting that time in there and, um, give that a shot. I'm 100% with you. And for me, it just comes back to if you're dealing with, if. Different coaches every season for dealing with different teammates every season. If you're using different body parts as your focus, you're going to be healthier. You're going to be happier. You're going to be more humble. You're going to be more adaptable. So I'm with you. It's, and I see so many kids get burned out by the time they're 17. They're just done. They're done with their sport. Cause they've just, they want to do something else. They want to be in the school play. They want to. They want to be able to go to a football game. So I think if you ask every college coach at every level that asked what their biggest fear with kids coming out of club volleyball is overuse injuries and then playing on the sport court surfaces and convention centers. For jumpers, big jumpers, you're, I don't think you would have ever allowed your basketball teams to play a game on those courts. There's no give underneath those. It's, and it's the wear and tear is unreal. And So thank you for that. I just, I don't think we can preach it enough to, and I don't think it's, I know it's not the college coaches issue. They, the, every coach tells me that just what you just told me, it comes down to the club and the high school coaches. They want these kids living and breathing it. And there's nothing left in the tank by the end time they get through the They're so ready to be done. They need that getaway. Coach, one piece of advice for kids and families that want to play in college, not necessarily for you, but what's that one piece of recruiting advice that you think every parent and student athlete needs to be thinking about when they start that recruiting journey? To me, it's the portal is we don't use the portal. We haven't, we may have to someday, but we want kids that are going to be with us for four years. because of the other than volleyball experience. So I can't say that I think kids number one have to be committed, show your commitment to one organization, meaning I won't recruit a kid that's transferred clubs in high schools. Cause they're going to get here and they're going to transfer from me. They, it's too easy to do. They've already learned how to do it. It's like a kid going to college and they keep dropping classes. It becomes so easy. Class is tough. I'm going to drop it. I think that's important to know. But. I guess more importantly for, I'm going to talk about non powered division two schools and division three, be as strong a student as you can be and find a place that if you weren't able to play volleyball the day after you got there, you still loved that school and that experience and you wanted that experience. Because it is bigger than, our kids are not here to go proud and they want to win championships, but they're here because of our school and the volleyball is just an enhancement to that experience. It's such a great thing for me to hear that. Cause I preach it. But I've got, I care so much about what a kid wants and we're, and what they think they want, and I want to help them get there, but for me, it always comes back to reminding them of that you, and so many coaches have used the phrase, go somewhere where you're appreciated, not tolerated as well. But I think that comes back to the mentality. I remember walking on the campus at Coe College 30 odd years ago, 30 some years ago, and I, and before I went, my brother and sister were both alum, and I knew I didn't want to go there. I knew I'd go to any other college in the country, except for Coe. And I remember the basketball coach recruiting me. I was like, fine, I'll go visit. And I walked on and within five minutes I fell in love with it. I just, it was home for me. Everybody treated me the way I wanted to be treated. There was no fluff. Everybody was direct and there was kindness behind it. And I want every kid to feel that when they walk on a campus. So it's great advice. It's hard for the kid to figure out if it's a perfect match, just like it's hard for the coach to figure out if the kid's a perfect match. But I think the kids need to make sure they look for all any and all flags that pop up in the process. Make sure they are finding that exact experience you're talking about. Again, there's got to be consistency of behavior by the coaches, the staff and then just like I think they should watch the players and see how they act. And if the players have some issues and how they act, it's probably coming from the program, that's right because you're if you're not preaching it, you're enabling it, right? That's great. It's that I think transferring is okay in the situation where you get into a program, that's just not what you thought it was, but in this day and age, now you can imagine this. When you went to college, you could have gone to four different colleges and played at four different places. I think there's a room for at least a one transfer if it's not a good fit, but every year you can just say, yeah. Coach was mean. Coach isn't playing me. I'm going somewhere else. And yeah. So I've got all these pictures behind me and I'm, I know you do too. Of all these kids that came to my program and didn't play year one, or didn't play very much in year one, but by the time they were seniors, they were my captains and my leaders, and they'd grown. Exponentially as people, let alone as players, and it just hurts my soul to see all these kids not give a coach a chance. If I could give a kid you for four years, I just, I know what it's, what they're going to be with her. Or I can't imagine the growth that they're going to go through in four years. And that to me, that's so rewarding when a kid gives themselves that opportunity. And a parent solidifies that stance, wherever you're going to go, you're going to stick it out. You're going to fight by yourself. You're going to fight for that coach. You're going to fight for that relationship, right? I agree. Yeah. Last question, coach. And this is when we asked every college coach, what's the most significant thing you can tell my audience? I know that's a loaded one. That's a big one. And it doesn't have to be about coaching or recruiting. Just that piece of advice that maybe has touched you or you just you make sure your kids here every week and every day. I think that being a college athlete, I'm not going to speak for division one, highest level of division one, because I think there's a lot of professional mentality there, but I think a division two college athlete, I think it's the greatest decision a kid could make if they're in a program that, is helping them develop as a person and all that. I just think that is It's tremendous. And I'm not just speaking volleyball, speaking any sport, what you learn above and beyond the classroom is, it's just invaluable. And so that's my, recruiting speech in the sense of why you should play. Can't think of anything off the top of my head that I would say other than that, I just, I wanted to significant that's profound. Yeah. I just. And I also, I guess I could say your audience needs to know that this is something they've got to work at to get to if they're watching your show and wanting to figure out how to be recruited, that they're not the kid you walked across, you walked down the court in Big South and stopped because you said, wow, that kid was, didn't need to be out there selling yourself. And there are. What? 3 percent of the population are going to be that way. The rest of the kids have to do some work and they just need to put in the time, research it, find that fit, and then just devote themselves to it. And it'd be worth it. Yeah, the idea of wow, they never stopped working. Wow. They never stopped talking. Wow. They never stopped their energy. There's a lot of wows out there. And that's the kid that when they get out in the job market, they can do anything they want to do. Every company wants them, every team wants them. Every company wants them. Coach, thank you for your time today, but more importantly, thank you for the 40 years of, Educating and leading and I do this because there's so many coaches like you that are changing the world, one kid at a time. I'm sure the people of Tampa know you and the surrounding areas know you and love you and cherish what you've done, but. I do this. So the families around the country know that it's just not what they're seeing on TV, that there's great leaders and coaches and mentors for their kids out there. And if all they're looking at are 30, 000 kid public schools, they're missing out on what's capable. So thank you for all you've done for Tampa and your girls. And thank you for. Sharing your wisdom with me today. I thank you for having me on and I got much appreciation for college coaching as well. It's done a lot for me. It's not, I've not done as much for them as it done for as much as it's done for me, so I'm selfish there. But but thank you for having me on. It's great opportunity and good luck. Thanks coach. A lot of fun. Alright, take care. Well, that's a wrap for this episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast. I'd like to thank Coach Chris Katnak for sharing his years of wisdom and significant outlook on coaching and mentoring with me. If you're enjoying these conversations, please click that subscribe and like buttons. If you're interested in working with me or scheduling me to speak at your school organization, you can schedule a free strategy session at CoachMattRogers. com. Hey, thanks again for listening. Have a significant week. Goodbye until next time.