Teacher cramming for season-long test
Five years coaching volleyball at the post-secondary level has taught Tommy Sloan that one size doesn’t fit all.
Nor does one style of play.
The new coach of the Niagara College men’s team wants the Knights to be aggressive, quick, tough on the serve, but how they go about achieving that won’t be restrained by a rigid system.
“One thing I’ve learned if you came in dead-set on a system and then try to squeeze that system into the group of players you have, it doesn’t always work,” the 30-year-old native of Fort McMurray, Alta., said. “You have to work with the type of player you have.”
Sloan, who comes to Niagara after four seasons coaching in Alberta and one in Manitoba, said a big part of his new job is to find a system that brings out the best in the players that he has.
“I prefer a faster offence, but who doesn’t really,” he said. “I think if you ask any coach, they would want to have a fast offence.”
Sloan spent last season as an assistant coach on the women’s
volleyball team at Brandon University. He was head coach of the women’s team at Keyano College, his alma mater in Fort McMurray, for three years before that, after getting into coaching as assistant for one season at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, also with the women’s team.
At Niagara, the one-time Alberta
Colleges Athletic Association all-star libero faces the triple challenge of taking over a successful program, just before the start of the school year and coaching men for the first time at the post-secondary level.
“I’m aware of the challenge certainly,” he said. “I like challenge, I embrace that type of situation. “To me it’s more interesting than something that is less of a challenge.”
Last season the Knights finished fourth in their division with a 10-8 record and made the playoffs under Nathan Groenveld, now head coach of the men’s program at York University.
With four gold and two silver medals at provincials as well as a bronze at nationals since 2000, expectations are high at the region’s community college when it comes to men’s volleyball.
At Keyano, when Sloan arrived in 2014 it was hoped he’d lift the Huskies out of last place in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference. The school’s remote location in northeast Alberta didn’t
‘‘
“I’m not going to come in here and flip the wagon and completely start from
scratch.”
TOMMY SLOAN
Niagara College men’s volleyball head coach
make recruiting easy. While scholarship money was “phenomenal” and the school offered four different university degrees, that wasn’t always enough when Sloan called on players.
“There were some benefits to it, but trying to convince athletes to move 400 kilometres north of Edmonton was a challenge,” he recalled with a chuckle. “Once we started having success after my second year, recruiting became a lot easier.”
He isn’t too concerned about coaching men rather than women.
“I played at this level, I have great coaching mentors to get information from if I need to.”
Sloan played four years at Keyano before going to University of Alberta to complete his degree in education.
As the assistant job at Brandon was for one year on an interim basis, he was planning to return home to Fort McMurray when he was invited to interview for coaching position at Niagara.
“If this hadn’t come up, it was probably going to be teaching full-time in Fort McMurray for a year.”
Furthering his coaching career trumped teaching.
“I want to coach. That’s my goal, to continue coaching as much as possible and getting more and more experience.
“Not having coached men, I see this as a unique challenge to kind of widen my scope and become a better coach.”
He intends to apply with school boards in the region in hopes of working as a supply teacher.
Sloan, who has coached volleyball at the high school and club level, said the biggest difference with coaching at the post-secondary level is “these athletes want to be here.”
“They made that choice,” he said. “Sometimes in a high school setting, there are students who don’t want to be there at all.
“They should have some sort of intrinsic motivation for being here, so the expectation of me is to provide them with that experience they expect to succeed.”
Sloan said players learn more the game when they become involved in coaching.
“There is an advantage teaching players to coach in some sense because when you see the game from different perspectives, you become a better player as well.”
With Niagara only bringing in two rookies, Sloan likes the first hand he’s been dealt as men’s volleyball head coach.
“We have a decent amount of guys who have been here before and have been through it,” he said. “I am going to lean on them a little bit in terms of things that worked in the past.
“I’m not going to come in here and flip the wagon and completely start from scratch.
“If things worked in the past, we’re definitely going to integrate those along with my own style as well.”
Niagara is “extremely excited” for Sloan to get started in his new job.
“He brings a wealth of experience on and off the court that will serve as an invaluable resource to our student-athletes,” athletics and recreation associate director Michele O’Keefe said.
“We are looking forward to seeing the impact that Tommy will have on the program in 2018 and beyond.”
Training camp for the men’s team opens Tuesday, Sept. 11, at the athletic centre on the college’s main campus in Welland. Sloan’s first regular-season game as coach will be Thursday, Sept. 20, when Niagara hosts defending Ontario champion Fanshawe.