TIM PEELER: Stubbs Eager for Second Volleyball Season

BY TIM PEELER

 

RALEIGH, N.C. NC State has a different volleyball coach this season, one who hopes to produce better results from than year.

Charita J. Stubbs, hired before last season from Arizona to lead the Wolfpack’s volleyball program, didn’t go anywhere she just made some significant changes in the way she is building her program. Stubbs admits that as a first-time head coach, she made mistakes last year in establishing its foundation.

The result? A difficult transition year in which the Wolfpack finished with a 2-29 record.

“It was really rough around here at the end of last season,” Stubbs said. “I think I could have jetted out of here, and all the players could have quit volleyball, and none of us would have ever looked back.”

Stubbs recognized a need for change, without compromising her desire to build a successful program. She attended a leadership conference in May. She spent a week in Indianapolis at the women’s coaches’ academy. She hired a life coach to help deliver her message in a gentler manner. Sitting behind her desk in an office at Reynolds Coliseum, she points to a stack of 10 books on the topic of leadership.

“I learned from the experience of last year,” Stubbs said. “I am not opposed to change. I just need to understand it. What I have seen so far from the changes is positive results.”

Camp started in early August, with a slew of new faces and new circumstances. Stubbs brought in 10 freshmen, including four from California, four from North Carolina and one each from Indiana and South Carolina. Stubbs believes it is a good mix of talent that should help the Wolfpack for years to come. Now, 14 of the team’s 18 roster members were recruited by Stubbs, which has made a difference in the way the players have bought into her system.

The team went through multiple bonding exercises, including a ropes course to help develop their communication skills and a spa day to help everyone learn to relax and enjoy the moment.

“Things are completely different from last year,” Stubbs said. “We are all kind of excited now when we go to practice. We do our job, we work hard and we go home. Last year, I admit that I was a little well, a lot dogmatic about what has to be done. I was rough around the edges.

“It’s not that I have backed off in my demands, but I have taken the time to get to know the players more and understand them. They have taken the time to get to know me and my sense of humor. Or lack thereof. We have a better understanding, mainly I think because of a better system of delivery than last year.”

Last weekend, the Wolfpack opened the 2007 season in Durham at the North Carolina Central Tournament, winning three of its four matches. Already, Stubbs’ team has 50 percent more wins than last year. The team returns to action this weekend when it travels to Gainesville, Fla., to face seventh-ranked Florida, Santa Clara and Georgia Southern in the Campus USA Credit Union Invitational. It opens its home schedule on Sept. 7-8 with the Holiday Inn Brownstone Volleyball Challenge to face East Carolina, Dartmouth and Akron.

Stubbs knows that she has and always will have the personality of a lion. She doesn’t want that to change. But she has also seen positive results of her off-season personal development.

“Does that success come in the form of more wins than losses?” Stubbs said. “I don’t know. But my expectation for the team this year is for them to be enthusiastic, for them to be energetic and for each game to be better. I think only good things are going to come from that.

“I predict we will be better than we were last year. There really is nowhere for us to go but up.”

You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.

North Carolina State University Athletics

TIM PEELER: Stubbs Eager for Second Volleyball Season

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