Dinner of Champions? : CSUN Volleyball Coach Walt Ker Has Starved All Season to Prepare for Tournament Feast

Coach Walt Ker is looking forward to making it home in time for dinner.

But for the next week, Ker won’t be thinking about what’s served on his plate. Instead, his thoughts will be directed at what is served on the volleyball court.

His Cal State Northridge women’s volleyball team plays St. Cloud State (Minn.), which is ranked 10th nationally, tonight in the first round of the NCAA Division II Southwest Regional playoffs. The game begins at 6 in the Northridge Gymnasium.

If the Lady Matadors beat St. Cloud (38-8 overall) they will play Saturday against the winner of tonight’s second match between Cal Poly Pomona and UC Riverside.

The winner of the regional then advances to the NCAA finals Dec. 13-14 in Portland, Ore.

And after the last match--either in Portland or this weekend at Northridge--Ker will have six months of “living like a normal person”.

Normal to Ker is getting home in time for dinner, say, before 9 p.m.

For the last seven years, Ker has coached the women’s volleyball team in the fall and the men’s volleyball team in the spring, devoting up to 12 hours a day to his job. And for seven years, during those two seasons, Ker says he has never made it home in time for dinner.

But Ker has decided to forgo coaching the men’s team in 1986 to concentrate on the women’s team.

“It will be the first time in seven years that I’ll be a normal person and be home for dinner,” he said.

The lighter schedule should benefit at least one of the women in Ker’s life.

Walt and Cathy Ker, a former CSUN volleyball player, are expecting their first baby in February--when Ker would have been busy coaching the men’s team.

The Lady Matadors, ranked No. 1 in Division II, finished their California Collegiate Athletic Assn. season undefeated in 12 matches. They have won their last 18 matches for an overall record of 24-9.

But CSUN’s success this season is not necessarily a result of the coach’s new time schedule.

The team has progressed to the NCAA Division II championships every year since Ker arrived at CSUN. In the last five years, the Lady Matadors have won two national titles--in 1980 and 1983--and finished second in 1982 and 1984.

Ker’s teams have compiled a 35-1 CCAA record in the last three years. The conference named Ker coach of the year in 1984 and 1985.

The 32-year-old coach has attracted national attention to the women’s volleyball program at CSUN, not unlike the reputation John Wooden built for UCLA men’s basketball.

“Wooden had a consistency in his life style that carried over onto the court,” Ker said. “His coaching success came as a result of that life style. I hope to someday be close to his level of coaching.”

Ker patterns himself after the cool and composed Wooden, but the CSUN coach has not always been so easy-going.

“I used to be famous for breaking clipboards,” Ker said. “I would yell and scream and throw the clipboard on the floor if I saw a girl make a stupid mistake.”

But several years ago, Ker made a conscious decision to be more like Wooden.

“He’s calmed down a lot,” All-American outside hitter Heather Hafner said of Ker. “Over the four years I’ve played for him, he’s matured as a coach. He doesn’t yell or scream anymore. That kind of coaching doesn’t do any good anyway.”

That’s what Ker figured.

He has discussed his stay-calm philosophy with assistant coach Theresa Denton, who is in her first year with CSUN.

“He and I have spoken often about this, because many times I might scream or yell,” Denton said. “But there’s an obvious positive side to Walt’s theory. He keeps the girls level-headed.”

Denton sites as an example the time when CSUN was tied with its opponent in the fifth game of an important match. Ker called a timeout and in a deliberate, calm voice said, “OK, let’s focus in and see what we did wrong.

“That’s Walt,” Denton said. “He keeps his cool and the girls do, too. They have to think about making the right moves out on the court, rather than worrying about the coach being mad over on the bench.”

Ker sits on the bench and observes a match like an owl watching a mouse--without motion or expression.

Ker said that some coaches allow a timeout to become a cheerleading session.

“Sometimes I need to put a coal under their rear ends to get them going,” Ker said. “But I don’t cheerlead. Timeouts are important minutes of instructing the girls of detailed adjustments they need to make in order to play better in the game. That’s a coach’s job, to teach.”

“He is an excellent teacher,” Denton said. “He has a way of explaining a certain skill by breaking it down and making it easier to understand.”

Ker credits his father, a former basketball coach at Valley College, with teaching him that skill.

“My dad’s a real teacher,” Ker said. “I picked up that part of my father’s personality. I love to teach people, whatever it is.”

This semester at CSUN, he teaches aerobics and ballroom dancing.

And women’s volleyball.

“Sometimes I’m amazed that I get paid for what I do,” Ker said. “It’s not a job, it’s something I enjoy doing.”

One of the most enjoyable aspects of coaching, Ker said, is the relationships he establishes with his players.

“He cares for each girl individually,” Denton said. “The bottom line is he genuinely likes them.”

Before the last match of the regular season, Ker presents each of the seniors with a long-stemmed red rose.

“That’s the type of thing Ker does because he really cares about us,” Hafner said. “He loves to teach dance. When we were on tour one time, I can remember Wally taking one of us out onto the balcony of a Motel 6 and teaching the swing.”

But Ker says he has no trouble drawing the line between friendship and coaching.

“When I step out onto that court,” Ker said, “I’m the coach.”

Ker said he wouldn’t consider leaving CSUN unless it was to coach one of the top five Division I teams.

Ker started coaching at CSUN in the fall of 1976 after graduating from Northridge with a degree in physical education several months earlier. He was offered a full-time teaching and coaching position after receiving his master’s degree in physical education at CSUN in 1981.

The subject of Ker’s thesis was vertical jumping. The thesis proposed that jumping ability can best be improved with one specific exercise--jumping.