Things Didn’t Quite Go According to Plan : Instead, Volleyball Player Cinnamon Williams Became Better Faster

Ed Gover had a plan. Three years ago, he started charting a path for his star pupil, Cinnamon Williams. It was a path that was not about to get crossed.

Williams was about to be launched on her way to a productive and prosperous prep career.

As an eighth grader at Maranatha Christian Academy in Costa Mesa, Williams caught the attention of Gover, then a physical education teacher and now varsity coach at Southern California Christian High School.

Gover decided there was no time like the present to prepare Williams for a future of digs and spikes in the competitive world of Orange County high school volleyball. He devised a list of goals that increased yearly as she prepared to enter Melodyland High (now Southern California Christian).

By the time she was a senior, Williams was to strive to become the CIF Southern Section Division 1 Player of the Year and Most Valuable Player of the Olympic League.

Just sign on the dotted line.

“He told me what the goals were, and tried to explain them, but I really didn’t understand them,” Williams said. “I just signed the paper.”

Said Gover: “I knew she was a gifted player, and I wanted her to develop her skills to the utmost. So I set up some goals so she would have something thing to work toward.”

The only problem was she didn’t take as long as Gover anticipated. Last season, as a junior, Williams was named 1-A Player of the Year, in addition to being an all-Southern Section and all-league selection.

Within three years, Williams has become a major-college prospect, even though she plays at tiny SCC (enrollment 300).

Williams, at 5-feet 8-inches, is an extraordinary setter. But the senior’s leadership quality is perhaps as important as her court skills. Because Gover and Williams have worked together for so long, she has become an extension of the coach.

“She is a dynamic leader,” Gover said. “She can inspire her teammates, if they see her go after a ball they start to think they can also.”

In a way, Williams’ talents have been hindered at SCC.

“She suffers because I gear practice down,” Gover said.

Therefore, they practice each night in sessions designed to ensure that Williams is challenged.

“The extra practices help push me because I’m short,” Williams said.

Volleyball workouts are part of Williams’ year-round routine. She is a member of the Cal Juniors, an Orange County volleyball club which plays after the school season. Gover is one of the club’s coaches.

Williams plays so much that volleyball has become a game of instinct. But it wasn’t always that way. Once, her lack of confidence was a major concern of her coaches. She eventually has overcome her nervousness on the court. And the recognition as a great player followed.

“It’s a great honor to have people think you are the best player in the league,” Williams said. “But I don’t want people to get the impression that I’m stuck up. I realize I have a long way to go until I’m really good.”

Williams once doubted whether playing at SCC was the right choice for a player of such talent, but she no longer has regrets.

“Being at a smaller school there is not as much pressure,” she said. “I thought about going to a larger school during my ninth-grade year. But in playing club volleyball I get to play with or against most of the girls at the bigger schools.”

Anyway, she went to high school for religious and academic reasons, not to become a volleyball star.

That was somebody else’s idea.