Loyola Restores 2-Coach Plan for Volleyball

A sports adage that some of the best deals are the ones never made will be put to the test this season at Loyola Marymount, where a planned metamorphosis of the volleyball program never came about.

The school has never had a full-time coach for either men’s or women’s volleyball, and Athletic Director Brian Quinn devised a plan last spring to hire one full-time coach--at a respectable Division I salary--to oversee both teams.

However, after sitting on the idea well into the summer, Loyola’s administration nixed the plan. Quinn rehired George Yamashita to coach the women’s team and this week named Mike Normand as men’s coach. Both have non-athletic jobs elsewhere and are on campus only for practices and games.

But after seeing a renewed spirit in the women’s practices and finding what he feels is a “big-time coach” in Normand, Quinn said maintaining the status quo may have been a step forward.

A year ago Yamashita took over for Nancy Fortner, who had taken the Lions to a West Coast Athletic Conference title and NCAA playoff victory over UCLA in 1986. She had left when Loyola failed to offer her a full-time position. Yamashita, her assistant, inherited a team that had unrealistic expectations and a brutal schedule--six Top 20 teams in the first two weeks. The Lions got off to a 7-13 start and pouted through much of the season, with several of Fortner’s favorites grumbling about Yamashita’s methods.

Things finally got ironed out and the team finished 10-4 in the WCAC, but Yamashita wasn’t assured he was returning until the restructuring plan was turned down in July--hardly a vote of confidence.

But after a month of practice, with the women’s season starting next week, Quinn said, “I’m really pleased with what I’m seeing in George, and I told him that. It’s now George’s team. The previous team was Nancy’s. You can see his stamp on it. The spirit and morale is very high. We’re seeing a nice step forward in George as a coach.”

It’s still an upward battle for the Lions and Yamashita. Loyola funds five women’s scholarships, in many cases split into partial grants, while powerhouses like UCLA, USC and Pacific give the allowable 12 scholarships. That makes the Lions competitive against similarly funded WCAC opponents but puts them at a disadvantage when they run into many of the fully scholarshipped teams along the West Coast. “Last year the majority of our losses were to Top 20 teams--teams that are fully resourced,” Yamashita said. “It’s hard to see this program competing on that level” with its current funding, he added.

With the uncertainty over his position, Yamashita didn’t get a chance to do much recruiting, signing only one player, and she left before she was officially in school. So this year’s team will be green but goes into the season with a better disposition and more realistic goals--play hard, be competitive in the WCAC and have fun.

“I was left hanging till after the Fourth of July,” Yamashita said. “I had (job) applications out but I wanted to stay, at least with (this year’s) seniors.”

Quinn said: “I had the proposal for a full-time coach (overseeing both teams), but it just didn’t work budgetarily. Now it looks like that might work to our advantage. Both of the ones we have are quality coaches. I’m excited about the future.”

Yamashita said: “I don’t know how realistic” the restructuring plan was. “There are about 1,000 NCAA schools playing women’s volleyball and about 50 playing men’s. It’s a different game.”

Loyola’s and Yamashita’s plans now aim as much at 1989 as this season. Only two seniors will graduate and the program also has recruiting money left over from this year. Quinn is hopeful the school will be able to recruit several blue-chip players for next fall.

He said: “George has some monies he’ll be able to give next year, and we did not use all the scholarship money this year.” Quinn is also trying to increase scholarships through outside fund raising, and eventually he’d like to be able to hire full-time volleyball coaches. But he added, “This is not a poorly funded program. We could always do better but I think we’re moving in the right direction.”

Normand, the new Loyola men’s volleyball coach, brings a long coattail of Bruin tradition to the Lions. The 40-year-old Normand was an All-American at UCLA in 1973 and 1974, helping the Bruins win an NCAA title.

Normand began coaching in 1978 at Santa Monica College and won four men’s state titles and posted a record of 132-5.

He left Santa Monica in 1982 for UC Santa Barbara where he was assistant coach in the women’s program, then returned to UCLA in 1984 to rejoin his old coach, Al Scates. From 1984 through last season Normand served as Scates’ assistant and the team’s strength and conditioning coach. During that period the Bruins won three NCAA titles.

He replaces Rich Rosales, who coached Loyola the last two seasons. That has been the normal attrition rate at Loyola, where the Lions have had trouble competing in the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. with the likes of UCLA, USC and Hawaii. Athletic Director Quinn hopes Normand can bring stability, as well as coaching and recruiting skills, to the program.

Normand is a teacher at Crozier Junior High in Inglewood and lives with his family in Westchester.

Normand served as a coach in the 1983 World Maccabiah Games and the 1983 World University Games and was head coach of the U.S. men’s team in the 1985 Pacific Rim competition.

Pepperdine, which returns four starters from last year’s West Coast Athletic Conference champion, is the preseason pick to repeat in women’s volleyball. In a poll of WCAC coaches, the Waves were the unanimous choice, followed by Santa Clara, Loyola Marymount and San Francisco.

South Bay players are spread throughout the WCAC, including all-conference setter Julie Jamile at Santa Clara and 5-11 freshman hitter Carolyn Hueth at Pepperdine. Both are Torrance natives.

Former Mira Costa High and Stanford track star Jeff Atkinson, the surprise winner of the U.S. Olympic Trials in 1,500 meters, will try to give a friend an Olympic boost Saturday. Atkinson will compete in the Gold Rush ’88 meet at UCLA where former Stanford teammate and Canadian native Mark Oleson will try to run fast enough to qualify for the Canadian team. Atkinson, who ran 3:37.64 this summer, will act as a rabbit for his friend, who has run a best of 3:39.26, just short of the qualifying time.

College Notes

Loyola will be the 1990 site for the West Coast Athletic Conference postseason basketball tournament, which rotates annually. The 1989 tournament will be played at the University of San Francisco, one of the WCAC’s most prestigious--but ancient--gyms. The sites are set unless a neutral court becomes available in the Los Angeles or San Francisco area. Last season’s tournament was held at Santa Clara, which may have the best facility for the tournament, but coaches feel it provides too good a home-court advantage for the Broncos to make it a permanent site. . . . Jim Benedict, Loyola’s pitching coach last year, has been named to the baseball coaching staff at Chapman College.