They call it Tobacco Road.
Not only do these four Universities share an excellence in athletics and academia, they are the platform of some of the greatest coaches in collegiate sports history. Names like Dean Smith, Jim Valvano, Kay Yow, Roy Williams, Anson Dorrance, Sylvia Hatchell and Mike Krzyzewski leap to mind as coaches who have a transcendent effect on their athletes, schools and teams in Tobacco Road and these rivalries continue to fuel debate and speculation with a passionate fan base so often lost in professional sports.
Another such coach resides in Chapel Hill and is taking us through his newly renovated locker room. In a deep voice riding a Bronx foundation, University of North Carolina Head Women’s Volleyball Coach Joe Sagula shows us the state of the art video which is touch screen and interactive in both the coaches room and the locker room. He shows us the facilities and as we pass from the coach’s office to the locker room, there is a large chart hanging on the wall.
“We have certain performance criteria that we think if we can accomplish those things it will help us be successful in the end.” Sagula says confidently. “What we really wanted was for our team not to focus on the outcome but how to be successful and what it’s going to take. If we just want to win, sometimes we fall short.”
He points out that the places in a match where the team exceeded their goals, a UNC logo is placed over it. The more stickers posted usually predicts a win at the end of the chart. “What we have to realize is what do our outside hitters have to do, what do our middles have to do and what do we have to do on defense? If everyone is doing their job at a good level, then we’re in a good position to win. Still, things happen in the crazy sport of volleyball so we have the team think about those things.”
A living example of a life-long learner, Coach Joe is finishing up the spring season of his 35th year coaching collegiate volleyball and his 26th at North Carolina. “It all starts with, and we talk about this from the first match of the year to the last match of the year, from the college level to the international level, who is winning the serving and passing game?” He says emphatically. “If we’re out passing our opponent, we’re going to keep our offense running and keep our opponents from serving well. The same thing applies as we want to out serve our opponent as well.”
“The criteria changes each year and depends on our personnel but also the history of what has been successful to win the conference and what it’s going to be to take a big step nationally.” Joe says. “We think outside hitters should be at .250, middle hitters should be around .350 to .375. Our right side hitters have been very strong so they need to be around .275 to .300. We also look at dig percentage; how many balls do we dig that the opponents hit? We also look at first ball kills and things of that nature. We have about nine different criteria and we think if we can get at least five of them, that puts us in a good position to win a match.”
Winning is tradition at UNC. Tar Heel basketball, women’s soccer and hovering with them is Sagula’s 12th trip to the NCAA’s this season. He has amassed 6 ACC titles and is closing in on 800 wins for his career. One of the DNA strands of UNC volleyball is also on the board. “There’s the all important one that is the subjective one by the coaches and the team and that’s what we just call our competitive spirit. That’s the criteria we measure for each match as well. Were we competitive from the beginning to the end? Sometimes we come out and we play inspired for one set and then we fall asleep or we’re good for two sets? We know that to be successful, we have to have a competitive spirit and an attitude to play hard. That’s something we measure and it might be as important as any other statistic out there. Sometimes you might not hit all of your numbers but if you have a really good fighting spirit and compete hard, you have a chance to win.”
“What we’re looking for is consistency. Sometimes it’s very deceptive. If you win the last set but you started slowly, the team might think, ‘Yea we had it, we came on strong!’ We’re looking at consistency from the first point to the last point. Sometimes we don’t make that decision till the next day after we watch video again. We want to sit back and not let the emotions take you: you might have a close one. If you won 16-14 in the fifth set you think yes, you have it but what did you do in the first two sets? Why did you go five? So we just try to look at that and as a team become aware of just how important that is. We want to hit well and pass well and serve well but we want to compete hard and have that attitude every day. We’ve won matches where the team didn’t have the competitive spirit and we’ve lost them and we felt the team fought hard and did everything they could that day and the other team was better.”
Coach Joe was a collegiate setter at New Paltz College in New York in the late 70’s where he earned a degree in Fine Arts, Arts Education and of course, Coaching. He parlayed that into being the Men’s and Women’s coach at Penn where he was coach of the year four consecutive seasons and won Ivy league titles throughout the 80’s. He came to Chapel Hill in 1990. Sagula has seen the game change and as great coaches do, he’s had to alter his coaching to fit the game and the players he’s coaching. He still attends coaching clinics, gives them, and is an avid reader: an entire wall of his office is a fully stocked book shelf.
"When I first started coaching, I wanted our players to have perfect technique.” He says smiling. “I wanted our passing platform to be great, our setters to never double the ball, our hitters with great arm swings and great footwork but I learned the hard way that sometimes that didn’t really matter and what I needed to teach them was how to compete and how to score and win games. I quickly learned that technique was good but you need really competitive people so I concentrated on playing more games in practices.”
“I give credit to my assistants Tyler Adams and Eve (Rackham) to help me realize what the other teams are doing well and what do we have to do to be better than them? I never really in my career looked at numbers. I didn’t understand them, I wasn’t great at them. I wasn’t one of those people who really understood the box score. I knew if you outhit somebody and had a higher hitting percentage, that was better and if you had more aces and less errors, that was good. That was something back in the 80’s that didn’t concern me, I didn’t know about that. I’ve learned that over the years that there are certain things you need to do and certain parts of the game you need to work on looking at the whole season. Where did we fall short? Who didn’t block well, who didn’t dig well? Who do we need to put over on the right side, whatever it might be? What do we have to get better at? So now we concentrate on that and we use that in practice.”
"We don’t want the players too consumed with numbers; they don’t need to know their hitting percentage but it’s the simple things. Are we making too many unforced errors is something we really talk about with our team. Are we getting first ball kills and the value of that? They understand point scoring situations that when we go back to the service line, how many times do we score points when we’re on defense when they’re serving? They have a general grasp of that but we also don’t want them thinking too much about that. We have at times tried putting hitting percentages on the board in the practices and that’s paralyzed them. For us, it’s learning how to win, learning how to hit the right shots at the right time.”
“If you’re hitting three hundred when the game is over does it matter or is it what you did to help your team win and score points at the right time? We try to make them aware of those things. So I’ve evolved and appreciated learning from my staff that really have an understanding of numbers for helping us to just tweak things. I still think it comes down to competing hard and having a winning attitude and making good plays. Sometimes we don’t win the stats battles but we win matches and I never want to underestimate those people that go in and compete every day.”
Joe’s continuing embrace of what it takes to succeed leaves his past opinions and traditions behind as he implements and searches to keep his program successful. “One of the things I look at now is being good at out of system volleyball that I never really understood. It’s kind of a hot thing now: out of system and in system but I think something that we concentrate a lot on is being good when things aren’t perfect. Early in my career, I wanted everything to be perfect. But now I realize you can win without being perfect. You want great passing but can you still find ways to score when things aren’t going well: how to win ugly. Sometimes that’s really important and having people that want to compete that way. I’ve learned that. I’ve learned the value, even more so of serving harder and being that much more aggressive at the service line and not being overly consumed with service errors at times. Not to the level of men’s volleyball but service pressure is really, really important in the game in order to compete. It’s tough to play defense unless you are putting a tough serve in there.”
“I think I have also learned the value of a libero. When the libero first came into the game, I think everybody thought they’re going to be a passer and when we all created volleyball and at camps and clinics and asked who is the most important person on your team, it was the setter. The setter is the best athlete. I think they the outside hitter is really important. It’s a great athlete who can pass and hit and make shots and she might be as important as the setter. But now, I think a quality libero can make a team go. I think that’s something that wasn’t true a few years ago. When they first came in and a couple of really good ones established themselves at the collegiate level, it got us thinking wow: that position is so much more important and they could be as important as the setter and maybe equal to these days. They can change the game, solidify your serve receive and make plays on defense. A really good libero is a great thing to have on your team. When our team has been really good, I think that was a big reason.”
Part of Joe’s success is his recruiting which he says over the last five or six years has focused on overall athleticism. “I feel like we can train kids who are great athletes whereas years ago, I think we were trying to get really good volleyball players. The reason why we’ve been able to take some steps up is that we’ve recruited some really good volleyball players but we’ve taken some chances on some really athletic kids. When you’re at qualifiers, you can see kids who are jumping well, who have quickness, move well and have a good vision for the ball. They may not be perfect volleyball players as sophomores or freshmen because unfortunately we’re looking at them at that age but we want to see how they move on the court. What we want to see is are they comfortable, are they fluid, do they jump well and their arm swing. I think a lot of times we think we can fix people’s arm swings but if they aren’t good by the time they’re 16 it’s hard to fix them and get a great one. So those are some of the things we are doing whereas years ago we just recruited volleyball players.”
“We needed good athletes and height so we’ve gotten taller and athletic and physical. We like our pin hitters to be physical players: strong, hit the ball hard and have good size. Recruiting is still so challenging because you can see some of the fire and some of the passion in some players but sometimes you just can’t get a read on them. The hardest players to recruit these days are liberos or good liberos because if they’re really good in competition they may not get served or people will hit away from them. I have to watch them in practice and I do think one of the things that’s changed is we try to go to more practices to see what their work ethic is. If we see someone who hustles and does those things I’m looking for in competition, what kind of a work ethic can we gather when they play the game when you watch them practice. To me, that’s a really important quality. They’re some kids that are really athletic that you say you don’t want them in your gym because they’re going to bring us down; they’re not going to work hard and fit into the culture of the team.”
One of Segula’s sticking points with the game is how it’s being trained at the younger levels. “I think there are definitely more athletic kids playing the game without question: bigger, stronger, more athletic kids overall. But because we specialize so much, I’m not sure the volleyball IQ has gone up. There are some ballers out there that are really good but you can get a 6-3, 6-4 kid who is a stud athlete that may not know how to put the ball in play. You set them in the middle or a good tempo ball at the pin and they’re going to swing, but it’s making good decisions; keeping the ball in play at times, how to be a good ball control kid. I think as a whole, you don’t see as much of that out there, unfortunately.”
“Kids haven’t learned how to pick themselves up. If they make a mistake they get subbed out, they don’t learn how to succeed after having failed. I think we do this in college too, we specialize but I don’t think we get as many kids that know the game these days. Most middle hitters come in and they don’t know how to pass at all and they don’t care about passing, they don’t understand the value of it. It’s like, ‘Okay, that’s not for me, I really don’t need to worry about that.’ Then when they get to college they realize hey, I might have to pass a good free ball. It takes some really athletic kids a year or two in college just to learn how to ball handle or to be able to put a ball somewhat near a target as a setter.”
“I’m a fan of kids playing more than just volleyball up until a certain point in high school. I think a lot of kids in 6th and 7th grades quit playing basketball and soccer or gymnastics or track and field and they only do volleyball. I think there’s a lot to be gained by playing different sports. To me, having a kid with a good athletic mentality, a good athletic IQ is only going to be enhanced by letting them play other sports, learning how to be successful, learning a work ethic and taking it from say swimming to volleyball, from softball, from track and field. I know clubs; there’s this pressure to specialize and they have the time to do that but I think probably by the middle of their high school career, if they want to focus on one sport, fine but I think up till then, kids should play lots of different sports. I think it just adds to the overall mentality for them. I think it makes a difference.”
“We have a kid this year that’s played three sports in high school and she gets it, she knows how to compete, she doesn’t get fazed if she’s not perfect. She’s really invested in learning how to get better because she realizes coming in she doesn’t have all the answers. Kids have to be open to saying, ‘Hey, I need to learn how to get better.’ They need that in college. They aren’t perfect when they leave club or high school and I think the parents need to let them know that they’re not perfect, that they have to grow and they have a long ways to go. Just the fact that they can be open and experience different things really helps a kid be a better athlete. The Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer says he’s recruited 40 kids on his football team that are multi sport athletes and he thinks that makes them better football players. I kind of have that same mentality. It’s hard, we’ve got a couple of kids that played all four years of high school basketball and they’ve become great volleyball players. Or they’ve done track and field: I like that.”
“I also think we tend to play too much volleyball in club year round. We need to give them a break. I think we get kids with bad shoulders or bad knees and they come in to college half injured. They’ve played too much. I think that’s where a kid’s future really comes down to what happens after their freshman year. Are they going to keep going or are they burned out, and I think that’s where kids themselves have to come to an understanding of what do they really want. Some of them just go through the motions after a while and those kids never amount to much. I think they really need to be inspired. I think how we manage the kids is vital. Are we giving them enough off time, enough rest time and managing their training cycle throughout the year and what their workload is? I think getting the summer off before they go to college, at least 3-4 weeks is a very good thing. During the club season, they play so much. I know one club that is playing every other weekend from January until I think the end of May. That’s a lot of volleyball. Go play some beach volleyball, go play something else. That’s okay. Maybe just a change of pace; something to give their bodies a rest from wearing out. I think 70% of kids come into college with some sort of nagging injury and if it’s not in that first fall season, it’s there in the spring. Somehow, we have to manage that better.”
For volleyball players, the Tao of Joe is about staying engaged, being healthy and being your competitive best. He sees a few things that would help. “One thing would be every kid who is coming up learns to play the total game. They can specialize with that kid that plays middle or outside but when they train them, train them to play defense, train the smaller kids to block and hit. Teach everybody the total game. I think that’s really important and not to limit them or to make judgments about how the tall kid always has to play the net or the tallest kid plays middle. I think that’s one thing: teach the kids to play the overall game.”
“I think the second thing is let kids compete and play games and understand the value of how to compete at a younger age. Not to drill, drill, drill; make it so that the kids want to come in and play games. Not always 6 on 6 but 2 on 2 and 3 on 3 and that when they come into the gym, it’s okay to even play 1 v 1; just having fun playing the game, working on different shots and doing different things when they’re younger and seeing the value of that. I think we just need to have kids have fun playing volleyball, not just doing the drills and doing passing and setting. There’s times they’ll understand the quality of being a great passer, that’s going to come later but I think when they’re younger, how to compete and enjoy that. Those would be the two things: letting kids be overall athletes and teaching kids to compete hard and competing when they’re younger and understanding that. Volleyball shouldn’t be pulling up your knee pads and do 100 passes. Let’s pass, set, hit and do more game like things.”
One of the ripples coming soon is what Segula sees as a changing of the guard in college volleyball. “There have been so many veteran coaches who have been coaching across Division I in particular and Divisions II and III for at least 25 to 30 years and I just think that at some point, in the near future, just by the timing, a lot of coaches are going to end up retiring in the next couple of years. They’ll all be over 60, and have put in 30 plus years and when that changes I just think that’s going to mean that people who have been part of volleyball since the growth of the sport at the Division I level, in the 1970’s and 80’s, they’re all going to be retiring. They’ve all helped the sport grow so much, and when they leave they’re going to be mentors to a lot of people but it’s going to create a lot of openings and voids in many ways because of what they’ve meant to the sport over the many years.”
“I’m thinking people like Dave Shoji and Russ Rose and Mick Haley and I would put myself in there as someone who has coached for 35 years. I don’t know what Mary Wise is going to be doing but she’s younger. John Dunning is another one. Many of them have won National Championships and so you’ve got high caliber championship coaches that probably in five years that are going to retire and that changes a lot: big shoes to fill. To keep that legacy going at these really great schools, I think there are some great coaches that are going to come up but it’s going to change things. When you have people who have been around the sport for such a long time and are institutions and have become synonymous with volleyball: not just Division I volleyball but volleyball throughout the country and what they’ve meant, it’s going to be very different.”
“Why those coaches have been successful is that they’ve been evolving over the time: they’ve changed. I don’t think any of them have continued to be successful because they know how to do it; they’ve had to change from the 70’s to the 80’s to the 90’s and even the last five years. The recruiting level has changed. What they have done is mentor really good assistant coaches. These assistants know how to do good things so I don’t think it’s going to be a big change in that regard. When you think of Denise Corlett at Stanford who’s been there for almost 20 years, maybe more and Shoji has had different coaches come through and they all seem to do a great job. Mick has had veterans come through there and Russ has had Salima.”
“People who come in there have to be prepared but you’re never going to be that personality. That’s the thing. There’s never going to be another Russ Rose type of person in that position at Penn State. There’s not going to be another Mick Haley or John Dunning. They come with their own unique personality that has made them successful in the way they’ve handled their relationships and dealt with people. That’s something you can’t just fill in. Someone has to come in and be their own person and their own personality. I think that’s exciting- that’s an exciting time but in some ways it’s a big change too. Those people that have been out there for so long won’t be on the sidelines anymore. If you think about those four, one of them has probably in the final four every year over the last bunch of years. It’s going to be very different.”
On this day, it’s hard to imagine Coach Joe not at UNC, not surrounded by baby blue and patrolling the Tar Heel sidelines in the fall. He is as much an institution as the coaches he sees ushering in the new generation. He is North Carolina volleyball. We say our goodbyes and Joe Sagula walks back into his office to prepare his team for the showdowns looming ahead on Tobacco Road. At the moment, the Tao of Joe not missing a turn on the road ahead.
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