Shelby Harguess admits she had some conflicted feelings about her final year in NCAA volleyball after a rough season in 2014 when the University of Hawaii Hilo women finished ninth in the Pacific West Conference with an 8-12 record. ADVERTISING
Shelby Harguess admits she had some conflicted feelings about her final year in NCAA volleyball after a rough season in 2014 when the University of Hawaii Hilo women finished ninth in the Pacific West Conference with an 8-12 record.
As she was preparing for the season she heard there would be a new coach taking over practices, teaching a different way of playing the game. Tino Reyes would still be the head coach, but Dr. Carl McGown, the former coach of the two-time BYU men’s national championship team and a long time member of many Olympic team champions, would be teaching a new way to play the game.
“Let’s say I had some concerns,” Harguess said, “going into my senior season, starting over in a way? It made me wonder, yeah.”
No more, for her or her teammates. The Vulcans lost the conference opener Saturday night to defending champion BYU-Hawaii, but it was fifth set squeaker, tied at 14-14 before the Seasiders got the final two points to secure the victory.
“I’ve learned so much, oh my God I can hardly explain,” Harguess, the team’s only senior, said, “I feel a little selfish for sort of questioning, I just wish (McGown) would have come here sooner, he’s taught us so much.”
The learning has come consistently, but not without its awkward moments.
“I told the staff and I told the players, this thing we are going to do is going to take us all out of our comfort zone,” Reyes said. “Carl is a very, very, very good teacher of the game of volleyball, he’s taught the kids and the staff a ton of stuff, we just need to keep with it and not lose the momentum we’re building up.”
McGown teaches technical details, things that sometimes might seem almost to trivial to worry about, but perfecting those little technical issues here and there leads to a big improvement over all. McGown teaches one percent improvement each day as the key to success.
“We are all getting better, pretty fast, actually,” said junior Marley Strand-Nicolaisen, “as of right now, we’re pretty much going on attitude and effort, but he has definitely made a difference.
“It is, basically, a concept that teaches you how to really improve the details, the little things, and that feeds into everything else,” she said, “about it isn’t just little things, (McGown’s) basically changed my whole way of playing volleyball, I don’t play the way I used to play, I think I’m better, I know I am.”
There is an internal struggle anytime one’s learned instincts are called into question and another way of doing things is presented, but the Vulcans, from the coaching staff on down, seem to have made the transition.
“When we learned about who he was, I think we were all a little intimidated,” Harguess said, “but oh my God, I’ve learned so much, he’s been so helpful in the way he takes the game apart for you.
“He breaks it down from your position on the floor, each step you take, where it is — exactly where, not just the general area — where you go next, how you use your footwork to get there, it’s been amazing.”
During matches, McGown sits quietly on the bench while Reyes moves players in and out and shouts instructions, pacing the floor like an expectant father at the hospital, but the teaching seems to be sifting through to the players.
“There’s no doubt we were all taken out of our comfort zones at some point,” said junior Sienna Davis, “but his concept of getting one percent better — each player — on a daily basis, I think is really helping.
“You want to get that one percent,” she said, “it makes you more focused somehow, it’s a motivator. We all know we’re getting better, we all feel it.”
It’s too early to call anything a success just yet. This was the first conference match of the season, and while BYU-Hawaii has a new, younger team, it still embodies the championship drive from Mona A-Hoy, last year’s conference Coach of the Year.
Still, a loss this close to the defending champions, a team that swept Hawaii Hilo twice last year by identical three-set routs, is an indication something good is underway in 2015.
If they keep that one percent improvement happening on a daily basis, we might see how effective the learning has been when these two teams close out the season in the third week of November.
So far, so good.
