An Interview with Assistant Volleyball Coach Shari Mayner

Q: Last year your team had its fair share of success. Playing in the national tournament is a great achievement; what can you take from last year's team and bring to this year's team to get deeper into the tournament?

The first match of the tournament is super important. We have to win that match to have a chance at the title, so preparing and working throughout the season to learn what we need to do to start ahead will be super important. Our returners have a great deal of experience and will need to step up as leaders throughout the season to take the team where it needs to be during that first match and beyond.

Q: Volleyball is so intense when you watch it, I cannot imagine how it is to play. Your team appears young and new to college volleyball, but ambitious.  When you recruit - what are you looking for from an incoming freshman? What is the one ingredient you seek from an incoming freshman that can help this team? Examples?

We look for players who have not yet reached their ceiling, who still have progress to make, and who are coachable. We honestly look for a good human first, and skills second.

Q: While watching your teams play in the past, they are fast, competitive, and resilient. Playing together and communicating seems a masterful skill to make a team great, and cohesive, but what are the skills you need to keep a team strong throughout a long season?

They must be good people. I'll say it over and over again, if you want to make it far in November, you have to lift up the people around you. We also need to keep progressing in everything that we do. We cannot fall into old tendencies where are comfortable. We have to stay uncomfortable doing things until they become a habit. I think that's the hardest thing. I hear from our players, "Well my old coach said....," That doesn't matter anymore. Buy into what we do here and will not only progress their own skills, but it will also progress those players around them.

Q: What are you most excited about with this upcoming season? Being at practice I saw you have a lot of new faces and a couple of veterans – what gives you inspiration about this team? Maybe a single player that stands out or maybe characteristics of the entire team?

We have a lot of personality, that's for sure. We have some players we knew were really good to start but can see how good they will actually get working through the season. I think having some 3rd-year players helps us in the maturity and decision-making department as well. We are going to be so good, we just aren't there yet. We have a lot of great pieces, now we need to put the whole puzzle together.

Q: How will you measure success for this team? What are the short- and long-term goals for this amazing team, and season? I love seeing players move on to play Division One volleyball, and that is clearly a great goal, but overall, what is a great measuring stick for the success of this team?

Returners measure our success. When we can have most of our roster in our gym for more than one season, that says a lot about our team, our program, what we instill in our players, and our successes. We also love when we see them in the gym after they are done playing. They are coming back for a reason, and usually, it is the feeling they get surrounding our program. Don't get me wrong, we love winning. But seeing familiar faces is the best feeling.