In volleyball, coaching boys and girls can be very challenging

There's one big advantage the six boys volleyball teams in the Fox Valley area have over other spring sports.

Their seasons are in full swing and not dictated by Mother Nature.

So while baseball, softball, soccer and track teams struggle to get their 2008 campaigns under way, the 75 or so varsity boys volleyball players in the area are well into their seasons.

Boys volleyball has never been an elite sport in this area, witnessed by the fact that only six of the 17 high schools we cover in the northern Fox Valley and southern McHenry County even have the sport.

In fact, no Fox Valley area boys volleyball team has won so much as a regional championship since the IHSA began a boys volleyball postseason in 1992. Bartlett has had some mild success over the years and has produced some Division I players like Billy Sahagian and Craig Boller, who currently play at Lewis.

Men's volleyball popularity across the country pales in comparison to that for women's volleyball. The NCAA still holds a combined Division I/II national championship for men and there are only around 70 DI/II schools nationwide that offer scholarships for men's volleyball.

What I found most interesting about boys volleyball in our area this spring is that three of the head coaches -- Joni Melahn at South Elgin, Jaime Walton at St. Edward and Keith Foster at Elgin -- are also the head girls coaches at their respective schools.

So what's it like to coach boys versus girls in one of the sports -- soccer being the other -- where you truly can draw some comparisons?

"At every parent meeting I say I could write a book about the differences," says Melahn, who, between Bartlett and South Elgin has coached boys for 5 years. "The boys I have are more inhibited and they just make me laugh. Girls are more reserved and not as likely to say anything in practice."

While girls start playing volleyball younger than boys, a large majority of them also play club and boys don't.

"When I was at Bartlett we'd have 7-8 boys in club but at South Elgin we don't have any," Melahn said. "Girls have been playing since sixth or seventh grade and unless a boy gets on a club team, they don't start playing until at least freshman year."

Walton has one club player -- Tyler Vaughan -- at St. Edward, but she wasn't even sure she was going to have a team. Having had great success in her four years as St. Edward's girls coach, Walton took over the St. Edward boys program just this season, as she freed up some time by becoming a recruiter instead of a coach for the Sky High club she works for.

"We only had four boys come to the first meeting," she said. "Then we had nine at the first practice and then it got up to 13 and then 15 when we didn't know if we were going to have a tennis team. Now there's a tennis team and we're at 12.

"They're very athletic, they just haven't had a good volleyball experience yet at St. Ed's. I feel like I've taught them so much already. But they're some of the most coachable kids I've ever had. Our first practice was at 6 a.m. and they couldn't wait. They were all excited and they really want to learn."

That's a good sign because there is much to teach boys about the organized game of volleyball they don't know.

"Our first year (at South Elgin), our boys didn't know that you just don't rotate like P.E. class, that there are actually positions," Melahn said, noting that in the infancy of the South Elgin program girls teams regularly beat boys teams in her camps.

"But I've seen a 100 percent turnaround. I stress fundamentals with both boys and girls but with the boys it's fundamentals at the varsity level where with girls it's more about strategy at the varsity level."

Both Melahn and Walton agreed one of the biggest challenges they face coaching boys is to get the males to buy into the fact the game isn't always just about who can hit the hardest.

"Oh my gosh," said Walton, whose only other experience coaching boys was with a 16-year old Sky High team a couple years ago.

"I didn't let them hit a ball above their heads for the first two days of practice. I said until you guys can pass we're not going to take a swing. I know men's volleyball is all about the powerful offense but you have to know how to play defense and pass."

"They just want to hit, hit, hit," said Melahn, who has seen the program numbers increase for six freshman her first year to 10 last year to 20 this spring. "They have to be taught it's about controlling the ball."

While Melahn has had a few years to develop boys at South Elgin -- she's a P.E. teacher and is able to get freshman boys interested in the game -- Walton is equally pleased with the progress her team has made in just a few short weeks.

"From where we started, I was scared," said Walton, who in a couple weeks will take her team to Loyola to watch the men's team play top-ranked Penn State. "The first practice we couldn't even pass back and forth and I thought oh my gosh this is going to be a long season. But we practiced and practiced and last Saturday it hit me that we've come so far. We've got a long way to go but we're getting there."

From a male's perspective, Foster, who played four years at Lake Park, believes strength at the net is the key to a boys team having success.

"It's like night and day," he said comparing the coaching of the two. "It's the same game but when it comes to women, it requires more strategy and coaching. You don't have girls hitting the ball 95 miles per hour. With boys the stronger team at the net is usually the stronger team all the way around. With girls you have to run more plays and find more gaps.

"Boys volleyball is more of a secondary sport and a lot of times they're just there to show off and impress people. With girls it's a primary sport and they are more strategic."

Will boys volleyball catch on and become better in this area? That's a tough call, but one thing that's needed in any sport is stability in coaching, something our area boys teams haven't had a lot of.

With Melahn, Walton and Foster, boys wanting to play volleyball not only can count on coaches who want to build their programs for success, but they can also be assured they're getting the full knowledge of three people who know the game inside out.

And that's good for both the boys and girls of their schools.