Bruin Volleyball Coach Cautious : Tough Stanford Stands in Way as UCLA Heads for Title No. 13

Coach Al Scates has always been known for brash confidence, which is fine as long as you deliver, which Scates’s UCLA men’s volleyball teams usually do.

Two years ago, Scates’ confidence bordered on cocky.

“This was always a team that I expected to win a national championship,” he told the Daily Bruin before UCLA played the national championships at Pauley Pavilion. And for the 12th time since volleyball was made a National Collegiate Athletic Assn. sport in 1970, UCLA won the title, defeating USC in three games.

This year, however, Scates is surprisingly cautious. When asked about the outlook for his team in this year’s national championship at Pauley on Friday and Saturday, the conversation kept coming back to a team he holds a 40-2 lifetime record against: Stanford.

“This year Stanford is a very formidable opponent,” Scates said. “They’ve been getting blue-chip athletes for several years now. They’ve stockpiled about 18 good athletes. They’re a veteran club that’s tough to stop.”

Scates’ preoccupation with Stanford is understandable. The Cardinal finished the regular season tied with the Bruins at 17-3 for the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. title. The Bruins split the conference series with the Cardinal, squeaking out a five-game victory in Palo Alto, then being swept in three games at Pauley.

“That’s why I’m surprised they didn’t want the playoff game,” Scates said.

Scates is referring to the tie-breaking procedure that gave UCLA an automatic bid to the final four while making Stanford win the WIVA qualifying tournament, defeating Hawaii in five games Saturday night, in order to advance. Penn State and Ball State round out the field.

The WIVA’s first tie-breaking procedure is head-to-head competition. Since the teams split their two games, a playoff game is usually the next step. A coin flip was arranged to determine the host school for the playoff match, or so Scates thought.

Because Stanford had played the maximum number of games allowed by the NCAA, it was determined that it could not play the tie-breaker. It was then agreed that the coin flip would decide the conference champion.

The most important aspect about winning the coin flip was the two weeks UCLA had to prepare for the final four.

“We really need that time to work on things and rest. We played a lot of games at the end of the schedule,” Scates said. “We need to work on our blocking and our passing.”

Of his 12 national titles, Scates lists the 1974 championship as most memorable. The Bruins entered the final match as the underdog to UC Santa Barbara, which was playing host to the finals. The Gauchos took games one and three but the Bruins bounced back with a 15-11 victory in game four to force a fifth game.

The hero of the match turned out to be seldom-used Sabin Perkins. Perkins had fractured his hand. Scates had him work exclusively on serving.

Trailing, 6-1, in the final game, Scates used the liberal substitution rules to keep Perkins serving. The freshman responded by serving six straight points, including three aces. The Bruins won, 15-12.

“They must have had 6,000 people in their gym. They were hanging from the rafters, on the floor, everywhere,” Scates recalled. “They saved us only 100 seats. Sabin was absolutely unbelievable. He was serving on the lines, in the corners. It was unreal.”

Perkins himself was equally impressed, for according to Scates he gave up the sport the following year, feeling that he could never again perform at the same level.

For a coach who has come to enjoy so much success, Scates landed the UCLA job for an odd reason: no salary.

Scates, 49, graduated from UCLA in 1961 and, having been an All-American, wanted to keep his amateur status in order to compete on the U.S. national team, on which he was an alternate for the 1964 and 1968 Olympic games. It wasn’t until the late ‘60s--he doesn’t remember exactly when--that Scates, who has been teaching in the Beverly Hills School District since 1965, began taking a salary.

“I was talking to Wilbur Johns, then the athletic director, and I immediately got his attention when I said I’d have to work for free,” said Scates, who is the dean among current UCLA coaches, having outlasted three athletic directors.

Perhaps the best way to put Scates’ longevity in perspective is to consider that Bret Banachowski, a senior setter at Loyola High, is expected to play for the Bruins next year. Banachowski’s father, Andy, was a two-time All-American setter for Scates in 1965-68 and has been the women’s coach at UCLA since 1970, guiding the Bruins to four national titles.

Scates is no stranger to the spotlight. In addition to his 12 NCAA and two USVBA titles since 1963, Scates’ teams have lost in the final game twice, in 1978 to Pepperdine and in 1980 to USC. The Bruins won three consecutive national titles in 1970-72, again in 1974-76 and then four consecutive in 1981-84.

When the Bruins won in 1987, after a two-year drought, Scates joked that three years would have been too long without a championship.

With all of his success he has been dubbed the “New Wizard of Westwood.” With the comparison to his long-time friend John Wooden, the normally confident Scates turns humble pie:

“Now that’s the ultimate compliment.”