East, West build foundation for boys volleyball
Camps. scrimmages prepare teams for '09 debut
The Lancers and Maroons held their second scrimmage last Thursday evening at West, with two more sessions slated for this Thursday and July 31, both at East. Former girls coach Joe Nesbit is the new boys head coach for East while Austin Betz will coach the inaugural boys squad at West.
"The first conversation I ever had with (former East girls coach) Katie Hoerner, we talked about how it would be fun to start a boys team," said Nesbit, who was head girls coach at East for four years after five years as an assistant. "The thought of starting something new at a school the size of East or West, where you know you're going to get some interest, was always on my radar."I played some volleyball recreationally, but when I was in high school, I would have loved the opportunity to be on a team. Now it's finally happening.
"This is my first experience coaching boys and it's a new process for everybody involved. You communicate a little differently with boys than you do with girls. You're starting from the ground up and just trying to give the kids some experience and have some fun doing it at the same time."
Many of the boys who have attended the East and West camps and scrimmages this summer will be on the inaugural teams next spring, so the summer sessions offer an opportunity to build a foundation for both programs.
"We did our first spring event in late April and we had camp in early July, along with the scrimmages," Nesbit said. "We've had pretty consistent interest from a core group of guys. We had 20 guys come to our camp and our open gym and we've been having 12 to 18 guys at the scrimmages. I'm really pleased with that because our summer on the East campus has not been good with all the construction. We had our camp at Wolf Branch (School) and we've come here a couple times, but we've been able to communicate with a handful of the kids.
"I e-mailed Austin the last day of school and said 'let's get together this summer and do some scrimmages.' It's very informal - we coach them as we play. We're just getting some competition for the guys.
"I can already see some progress. Their communication is improving and their anticipation is improving. Their technique is also getting better. They still have a ways to go, but in a short amount of time, they've come a long way."
Betz, meanwhile, is in his first year as a head coach, but he's continuing a family tradition. His father, Larry, was the longtime girls basketball coach at Belleville West and was the school's first girls volleyball coach. He was also head football coach at West and most recently was an assistant football coach at Althoff.
"I graduated from West in 2001. Golf, basketball and track were my varsity sports, but I played a couple other sports the first couple years," Betz said. "Then I went to the University of Illinois and worked with the women's basketball team as part of the men's practice squad.
"I ran the practice squad my senior year and I played on it a couple years. It was guys that played basketball in high school and weren't playing anymore in college. We practiced against the girls and kind of mimicked what the other teams did."
During the 2007-08 school year, Betz was an assistant coach for the Belleville West girls volleyball team and the Althoff boys volleyball team.
"I kind of grew up around volleyball - my mom (Connie) coached at Freeburg and Gibault and Emge," Betz said. "I never played formally, but I've been around it. The (West) girls were looking for some extra help, so I helped them out. During the winter I coached girls basketball here (at West).
"I'm good friends with (Althoff boys volleyball coach) Matt Biegler and I've known him all my life. I ran into him and he said he was looking for somebody to help out with their team, so I thought it would be a great experience for me and it would help me out over here. I kind of feel like I took advantage of him, but I think it worked out great for both of us. I got a year of coaching boys volleyball under my belt."
Like Nesbit at East, Betz has been trying to provide potential boys volleyball players at West with as much experience as possible during the summer.
"We had a camp the middle of June and we introduced the basic skills, with a lot of passing, hitting and setting," Betz said. "We've had open gym twice a week since then and we've been working out with the girls, so they've been playing with some people who are experienced. They're picking up on the game pretty quickly.
"Most of the guys have never played volleyball before and it's a good experience for them to understand how the game actually works. Most of them have watched it on TV and they don't really understand what's going on. This gives them a feel for what they're actually going to be doing during the season."
Both coaches are adjusting to the differences between girls volleyball and boys volleyball.
"I don't want to sell the girls short because volleyball around here is very elite and the girls can get up and crank the ball, but the guys can too," Nesbit said. "I'm trying to stress a little more overhand passing with the guys and defense may be just a little bit different, but we really won't know until we get into competition."
"With girls volleyball, they've been playing their whole lives and they've got the skills, but at this level, these guys are so athletic that it's a different type of game," Betz said. "Hopefully it will become more of a power game, but we haven't seen it yet. They're a lot stronger than the girls and they can do things a different way.
"The net is (eight inches) higher for the boys, but a good vertical (jump) for a girl might be 20 inches. For a guy, who might average six inches more height, they might have a vertical of 30, so they've got an extra 16 inches. I think the height is actually lower relative to what the girls play on."
Keeping in mind the inexperience of most of their players, Nesbit and Betz are doing whatever they can to make sure the athletes will be in volleyball shape when practice starts next year.
"I'm certainly going to encourage who will listen to play club ball this winter," Nesbit said. "As far as I know, the opportunities are somewhat limited on this side of the river, but there are boys clubs in St. Louis and I'm going to help the guys look for those opportunities. I'm just getting to know these guys, so I don't know how many of them are involved in fall or winter sports. We'll just deal with that when we get there."
"I've talked to a couple club programs and right now Southwestern Illinois (Volleyball Club) has a boys program," Betz said. "I talked to Kim Forcade, who runs the Southern Heat, and she's interested in starting a boys team. I'll encourage them to get involved with that and I'll have as many guys as I can help out with the girls team. Just being around the game is going to help them.
"Most of the guys that I've got are playing other sports, whether it's football, basketball or wrestling. It's hard to do stuff during the school year with those guys. But we've got a great program here with PE where coaches can take their athletes and put them in a specialty PE program. They're getting physical training that's appropriate to their sport and more for athletes than just the general student population."
