MOMENTUM EXCLUSIVE: Life as a Canadian in the NCAA

After finishing up a five year career in the OUA as a volleyball student-athlete for the McMaster Marauders, I took off overseas to see if the life of a professional volleyball player was for me. After one year, many French cuss words and a busted up knee, I decided that it was not the life I wanted or had even imagined it to be. While playing in France, I spent a lot of time soul searching as to what I wanted to do next and what would be the right career path for me. In January 2019, I wrote an article for Momentum Pro Sports and their series “Technical Timeouts” on my journey from athlete to hopeful professional coach, without knowing what was ahead for me. Fast forward a few years and I’ve since graduated from a Masters program, spent two years as a graduate assistant for the Indiana State Sycamores and am currently in my first season as a volunteer assistant coach for the Houston Cougars, getting ready to apply for full-time positions in the NCAA. 

Being a Canadian in the collegiate sports world of the United States has brought me an incredibly unique perspective on the major differences between playing in Canada or the US, the pros and cons of both and an inclination to seek out and follow fellow Canucks in the South. In this series, I’ll help break down the NCAA and what sets it apart from college sport back home, providing updates on active Canadian student-athletes and going over how one can find their way down South. My current experiences give me the most inside knowledge at the Division 1 level, but this series will try to explore each level of opportunity here in the US. 

To get this party started, I’ll share my experiences as a coach so far. Three years in, I’ve now had the opportunity to be a part of two very different programs in two very different conferences. My first stop, Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana. Yes, that’s the same place Larry Bird once went to school and one of the pit stops John Wooden made as a basketball coach. The Sycamores compete in the Missouri Valley Conference which is made up of schools in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Missouri. It’s known as one of the best defensive conferences for volleyball, often with several liberos and teams in the top 25 rankings for digs/set across all teams at the Division 1 level. Legendary teams out of the Valley include Missouri State (13 NCAA Tournament Appearances and 21 Conference Championships), University of Northern Iowa (23 NCAA Tournament Appearances and 19 Conference Championships) and Illinois State University (16 NCAA Tournament Appearances and 12 Conference Championships). 

The Missouri Valley Conference was established in 1907. Facilities were often on the older side of things, but rich with a history of their own. Due to the small geographic coverage of the conference, bus trips were the norm and we would compete on Fridays and Saturdays, playing one opponent and loading up the bus to head to the next stop. We would often leave on Thursday evenings, minimizing the amount of school that the girls would miss if we were on the road. Goes to show the impact of this as the Sycamore Volleyball team leads the nation in most consecutive AVCA Team All-Academic awards with 21 in a row. In terms of opponents, at the end of my first season at ISU in 2019, the highest ranked opponent was UNI at 44 in the final RPI rankings. The archival rankings for the 2020 season are not yet available. 

In my first season, there were already three Canadians on the roster who were recruited by the previous head coach, all from the Western portion of Canada. Cassie Kawa from Lethbridge, AB, Alex Toombs and Rhiannon Morozoff from Saskatoon, SK. Having fellow Canucks at my first coaching gig was a huge bonus, especially when we would miss home and reminisce on Tim Hortons coffee and Timbits. Terre Haute quickly felt like home with its smaller town, midwestern qualities that matched the same feelings you would get from any town outside of the Greater Toronto Area. The entire Athletics Department staff was welcoming and helped me find my feet as a first time college coach in a country and league that I had never stepped foot in before. The greatest challenge was learning all the various recruiting regulations so that I could pass the NCAA Recruiting Test, allowing me to go on the road and help hunt for future Sycamores. We just narrowly missed qualifying for the Missouri Valley Conference Championship tournament and quickly set out sights ahead on a foreign tour trip to Italy. 

Then COVID happened. Italy was cancelled, spring training season shut down, borders closed. The pandemic brought everything to a screeching halt. I had the opportunity to go home for a couple months while we all attempted to wait out the virus, except that didn’t happen. With the hopes of having a “normal” fall season, I headed back down to Indiana to start getting the team ready for preseason and then days before we were to get started, we got the news that the NCAA Volleyball season was going to be pushed back to the Spring of 2021. We were fortunate enough to be allowed to practice in some fashion with several precautions in place while we anxiously waited for the arrival of the new year. While the border remained closed, I was still able to travel home to spend some time with family before the eventual start of the delayed season. A quick flash forward to today, I still haven’t been able to visit home in almost a year. The spring season flew by and thankfully, we managed to avoid the cancellation of any of our matches and were ranked high enough to qualify for the Valley Tournament, having to take on the #1 Illinois State Redbirds in the first round. That was a rather quick three set match and before I knew it, my academic program had finished and it was time to move on from my little Midwestern home. 

Next stop: Houston, Texas. I cannot say I ever saw myself living in Texas, but here we are and I am loving it so far. The University of Houston competes in the American Athletic Conference, which likes to call itself a Power 6 conference. For those who don’t know, the Power 5 conferences are the ones at the top that consistently send several teams to the NCAA Volleyball tournament every year and are made up of the Big Ten, Pac-12, ACC, SEC and Big 12. Almost all of the very best teams belong to one of these conferences. Think Wisconsin, Stanford, Louisville, Texas and Kentucky. Yeah, those teams… The American Conference is spread out over a massive geographic region with teams in Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Louisiana, North Carolina and Tennessee. This means a whole lot more travel than what I experienced at Indiana State. We play our matches Friday and Sunday, which means if we’re on the road, we fly out Thursday and back home late Sunday nights. The conference was established only in 2013 and has seen shared success between teams since its inception. Some of the most well-known teams in the American include Cincinnati (Home of Jordan Thompson from Team USA Volleyball) and University of Central Florida (3 American Conference Tournament Titles, 1 American Conference Regular Season Title). Last season, the American split into East and West divisions to mitigate the amount of travel during the COVID season, with the University of Houston taking home the Regular Season Conference Title for the West. Current 2021 RPI rankings have our toughest opponent, UCF, at 27, just behind teams like Penn State and Washington. 

With the conference being as young as it is, and its push to be included as one of the top conferences in the NCAA, the facilities and game day productions are next level in comparison to those of the Valley. Most of the volleyball programs get to share the same facilities as their basketball teams, making them some of the nicest gyms I will likely ever get to coach in.

Since we’re still in season, there’s not much else to say but that the role of volunteer coach is truly unique. Technically, I’m on staff but I’m not “on staff”. There’s no compensation for the time that I spend doing volleyball things, which must mean I really love this sport and this job way too much. As a volunteer, I really just coach. I help scout opponents, but I don’t have to worry about the other roles like administration, dealing with student-athlete academics, office hours, recruiting and so on. These roles are all part of the job, but for now, I just get to focus on the student-athletes and what a gift that is. 

Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely some downsides to being a Canadian trying to make it as a coach in the NCAA. First off, my entire coaching network is back home. The people who know me or recognize my name are thousands of miles from where I’m currently located, and their networks are mostly within Canada too. Along with that, I’m thousands of miles from my friends and family too. That’s been a huge adjustment having gone to McMaster, just 20 minutes down the road from my parents. The NCAA season moves hard and fast, it’s easy to get burnout. So far, in my three seasons, I’ve spent two of them as a student and 1 of them working two other jobs so that I can continue to do what I love, which is college coaching. 

In my short time so far in the NCAA, I have certainly found my favourites. The travel is unmatched. Every time that I get to go see a new campus and city is so exciting for me. It keeps the wanderlust at bay, at least while college volleyball is on. The level of competition is amazing. Imagine getting to watch some of the best volleyball in the continent, level with courtside seating. Sure, I’m technically working at the same time but it’s still pretty freaking sweet. All those things aside, really my absolute favourite thing has to be all the various roles you get to play as a coach down here. Love trying to find new talent? Be a recruiting coordinator. Love trying to figure out how to beat your opponents? Technical coordinator. More offensive or defensive minded? Be a coordinator for those positions, just like in football. Down here, coaches get to coach at the Division 1 level. No varsity coordinator positions, no teaching requirements. You just get to do the things you love. And if you love doing other things, there’s places for you to do them all. 

Moving forward in this series, I will be covering the major differences between USPORT and NCAA, general recruiting practices for Canadian athletes and trying to keep up with all the Canadians in action. I look forward to continuing to share these experiences and help provide some inside access to life as a Canuck in the South.