VB Coaching staff updates

[psycHOGlogist]

A couple quick off-season updates - Coach Jason Watson was down two staff positions this off-season. The Director of Volleyball Operations, Stephanie Preach, was hired at Santa Clara as an Assistant Coach. Preach was a star libero for Watson at AZ State, and the promotion to Assistant Coach was the next logical step for her. Jason replaced her with former Hog, two-time All-American Meredith Hays. Good hire - was a great Hog, talented person to have in practice, high character kid, Texas native, and a hard worker overall.

Also, our second assistant Sarah Rumely (a hold-over from the Pulliza staff) took the top assistant position at LSU over the summer. That's too bad for us, as Rumely was a good coach, but she was not going to be the top assistant at Arkansas anytime soon, as long as Jon Newman-Gonchar is on staff (and he was a finalist for the Loyola-Marymount HC job this summer - he was an assistant there, previously, and he's a California kid). JNG has coached at the national level before, and Rumely is still on her way up. Taking the top position at LSU is a good move for her (and they desperately need some help with their setters, which she can provide).

Today Jason announced that we have added Megan Wargo-Kearney as our Assistant Coach/Recruiting Coordinator. For the last 8 years she has been the AC at Truman State, a very good DII program. She has also been the leading coach for Gold Medal Squared, a national company that runs camps and coaches' clinics. Same philosophies that Coach Watson uses, so it's a very good match, and they will all be on the same page.

What I also like about her is that her Truman State teams recruited a lot of kids from the top clubs in the midwest and some from Texas, so she is very well connected to the recruiting pipelines we need to firm up. Good person, good coach, good hire.

I think Coach Watson is doing a real nice job with his staff. Also, he's also gotten four 2018 commits already in the bag - one from Florida and three from Texas - which is great stuff. They're working on 2019s now, too. I like what he's doing so far with the program.

Next year will be tough on the court - at least 8 newcomers and only a few returners with significant game experience. But I expect them to gel into a competitive team (not necessarily a winning team) as the season progresses.