Off the Court: Matt McShane Meets with the Media
2/10/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Feb. 10, 2010
Prior to his second winter workout with the volleyball team, new head coach Matt McShane met with the local media. Below is a transcript of his question and answer session. McShane, who has been on the job for a week and currently working with the squad's 12 returning players, sat down to talk about his plans for the future of the Falcons' volleyball team.
WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR THE FIRST SEASON?
I think any program that a coach comes into ... the first thing that a coach wants to do is to get your players to compete. Work hard every day in practice. I've had one meeting with the team, had one practice, and saw them lift a few times. I'm excited.
After seeing the team ... they want to succeed. One of the first things that we talked about is that we are not going to talk about wins and losses right now. We're going to talk about getting better every day. That's most of the work we are doing now. We're in the time of year where all we get to do is just two hours a week in the gym with me and most of the time is strength and conditioning. So, every day ... we're getting a little bit better, we're getting a little bit stronger, we're getting a little bit faster.
And they are getting used to this voice in the gym. The only practice that we've had in the gym ... at the end of practice, they said, "You come after us a little bit". And I said, "Well, yeah. And that is the way it is going to be every day in practice". They were tired after one one-hour practice and I told them, in about three or four weeks, you are going to get me three hours a day, five days a week. I understand that the Academy has some challenges, as a coach. But when I talked to the players, I thought that there were going to be more restrictions and the players said "No. We can spend that time here. We have that time in the afternoon. You're ours." I'm excited. They're excited. You asked what are my expectations? To get a little bit better every day.
YOU TALKED ABOUT THE RESTRICTIONS AT THE ACADEMY. WAS THAT SOMETHING THAT YOU TOOK INTO CONSIDERATION WITH THIS JOB, KNOWING THAT THERE ARE SOME RESTRICTIONS?
I think I did my homework. You know, today, I was just telling a friend of mine that I had a list of five things that I had to do this morning. I got to work early and right now, I have 10 things to do. And I got all five things done. I got all five of the things done that I needed to get done and I have 10 things now to do.
I think that the Academy has done a nice job of getting some quality girls, cadets, future officers of the Air Force. They are maturing through the process. There are some quality people that are on that team. They want to work hard ... they're already working hard. I'm impressed. I'm impressed with the weight room facility here. That's where I've spent most of my time so far. The volleyball players, the football players, the hockey players and the basketball players that I have seen in there ... it's impressive to come watch all the cadets work out every day. It's an impressive sight. And boy, have you guys seen the weight room up there? It's awesome. Our players are working really hard to get good.
YOU SAID THAT YOU'RE NOT WORRIED ABOUT WINS AND LOSSES NOW. BUT CAN YOU WIN HERE?
Absolutely. Absolutely, you can win here. This is a great conference. I don't know if you guys know, but I spent a long time in this conference. I was at New Mexico for a long time and I was at Utah for a long time. This is a very good volleyball conference. You need to recruit and then once you have your players in the gym ... you need to compete.
There are different types of high school athletes that you recruit to come be cadets and officers. But you can take advantage of the assets that those people have and use them as strengths. Absolutely, the cadets that are at the Air Force Academy have some strengths that nobody else in the conference has ... their intelligence, their work ethic, the way they compete every day. I talked to my friends who are coaches in the conference and I asked them to tell me about Air Force. And the one thing that they said all the time, every single one of them that I spoke to, they said, "They fight. They compete, every single point. We knock them down and they get up and they come back after us again and again and again." We're going to take advantage of that.
We're going to win. I'm used to winning. So, everybody around me is going to be a little grumpy if I'm not winning as much as I'd like to win. We're going to win.
