Too Good to Hide : Loyola Volleyball Coach Mike Normand Wants His Improving Team to Get All the Credit, But His Contribution Can’t Be Ignored

Mike Normand, Loyola Marymount’s volleyball coach, is always blunt. He calls himself a straight-ahead guy who doesn’t like the spotlight and hates the publicity that often comes with success in coaching.

During an interview in his cubicle office at Loyola, he tried desperately to focus on his team rather than himself. He leaned in a chair, clad in a white tank top that revealed well-defined biceps and a pair of blue shorts that exposed muscular legs, and said: “I’d rather you write something on my players and not me.”

Through the years, however, Normand’s successful athletic and coaching career has made it impossible for him to avoid the limelight. As a coach, the former UCLA all-American outside hitter has triumphed at practically every level: junior college, four-year university and age-group clubs.

Even now, in his second year at the helm of a small-time program in a big-time league, Normand can’t avoid recognition. Last year he led the Loyola men to their best record ever (4-16) in the tough Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn., and this season his team is ranked among the nation’s top nine.

Breaking into the top 10 was a difficult feat for little Loyola, since the 12-member WIVA includes powerhouses such as UCLA, USC and Hawaii. Most teams in the league are fully funded, which means having five scholarships and a full-time coach.

Loyola has neither. The Lions have only two full scholarships and a part-time coach who took a huge pay cut because he believes that the program can be turned around.

Normand left an assistant coaching position at UCLA and a teaching job at Crozier Junior High in Inglewood to take over at Loyola.

“I gave up $80,000 of money to work for less than $20,000,” Normand said.

The 41-year-old coach says Loyola has many obstacles to overcome before it can be a contender in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. He hopes to change that with the help of Athletic Director Brian Quinn, a strong supporter of volleyball.

“In real life,” Normand said, “to be successful at a Division I college in any athletic event, the No. 1 thing you need is a good coach. The No. 2 thing is that it has to be fully funded. Then you have to have the ability to get an athlete into the school and keep the kid in school.

“Once you have all that, you can win it all, or at least you have a chance to win it all. We’ve proven that in basketball. It’s fully funded and we made it to the Sweet 16. Same with baseball. It’s fully funded and we’re in the top 20.”

Normand, whose budget won’t spring for an assistant, says he’ll do his best with what he has. He’s determined not to let insufficient funds get in the way of success.

“I’ll go out there and beat the bushes,” he said, waving his index finger, “but I’m going to win the NCAA.”

For now, that sounds far-fetched, but the Lions seem to be headed in the right direction. On Tuesday, Normand broke another school record. The Lions’ road victory over cross-town rival Pepperdine gave Loyola a winning mark (8-7) for the first time in school history.

The much-improved Lions have defeated several higher-ranked teams this season. Besides Pepperdine, they beat UC Santa Barbara, San Diego State and Brigham Young University.

“He does a real good job,” said Pepperdine Coach Marv Dunphy, who has led the Waves to two national titles. “He’s a real plus, and he’s made a great impact on the team over there. The kids look real strong and they look well-conditioned.”

Dunphy, who coached the U.S. men to a gold medal in the 1988 Olympics, played at Pepperdine when Normand played at UCLA.

“He was real good in all skills as a player,” Dunphy said. “I really respect his volleyball knowledge. It’s great.”

Normand is also a great motivator, according to his players. Senior middle blocker Chris Young says his intensity and competitiveness have played key roles in the team’s success.

“Basically he gives us confidence,” Young said. “He teaches us great techniques and to believe in ourselves. He makes us believe that no one in our league is unbeatable.”

Young says there’s a big difference between former men’s Coach Rich Rosales and Normand.

“Mike is a lot more disciplined,” Young said. “He sets his rules and you have to follow them. It’s all more structured now. We have a very rigorous weightlifting and conditioning program. As a result, I feel much stronger this season.”

Normand also brought immediate success to the Loyola women’s team. He led the Lions to a 7-7 mark during his first season in 1989.

He won’t coach the women next year, in order to dedicate more time to the men and pursue an administrative position in Loyola’s athletic department. Junior setter Anita Irwin says he will be missed.

Irwin said Normand did wonders for the women’s team, which posted a dismal 2-12 record in 1988 under former Coach George Yamashita.

“At first it took some adjusting,” she said, “because he’s a very demanding coach, both physically and mentally. But that helped almost every aspect of my game, from jumping to my stamina. He’s a great coach and he knows the game so well.”

Normand says that’s the result of more than two decades of training with the game’s finest.

His first two volleyball coaches, he says, had the most impact on him. The first, Harlan Cohen, taught him skills, and the second, UCLA Coach Al Scates, taught him mental toughness.

Cohen, an assistant under Scates at UCLA, introduced Normand to the game in 1967. Normand was a hotshot football, baseball and basketball player at Black Fox Academy, an all-boys school in Los Angeles. Cohen figured the enthusiastic young athlete would succeed in volleyball as well.

And Normand did. He was an immediate hit. He played for a Santa Monica club under Cohen for two years before serving in the Army from 1969 to 1970. Then he competed at UCLA, where he was an all-American in 1973 and 1974.

“Stormin’ Normand” led the Bruins to the 1974 national championship against favored UC Santa Barbara in front of a rowdy Santa Barbara crowd.

“Mike was our spiritual leader on the floor,” Scates said. “He was our best hitter, and he played a very emotional game. He’s the reason we won that match. His hitting was fantastic, and he had a tremendous vertical jump. He was very strong and very quick.”

Scates, who has led UCLA to 15 national titles in 27 years, says Normand got his nickname because of his intensity.

“During that NCAA game in 1974,” Scates said, laughing, “he got a wide set on the left side and he put it away with his left hand against a 6-foot-5 star blocker from UCSB. Then he ran around the perimeter of the court pointing to his left bicep. He told the Santa Barbara crowd, ‘Look what I can do to your All-American with my left hand!’ He always had lots of enthusiasm.”

Normand believes that’s what made him a good player. He says he never had natural talent.

“I never felt I was a great player. I’ve just played with great players and I’ve had great coaching. I was a mediocre player who trained and worked harder than anyone else.”

After UCLA, Normand played professionally for one year in a now-defunct men’s pro league. Then he won three open beach titles, one of them with Sinjin Smith, arguably the world’s best professional beach player and known today as “King of the Beach.”

“Sinjin won his first open with me in 1977,” Normand said. “I remember it was the Hermosa Open.”

Normand still plays on the beach when he’s not coaching or spending time with his wife and two children in their Westchester home. Up until last year he competed for Molten, an 18-and-over club in Carson that won several national titles while Normand was on the team.

“He’s a real competitor,” said Catalino Ignacio, Molten’s coach of 11 years. “When he plays, he’s a real winner. He’s very aggressive and he really hates losing.”

The same applies to coaching, and until Normand came to Loyola, he seldom lost. Between 1978 and 1982 he led the Santa Monica College men’s team to four state titles. Then he served as a women’s assistant at UC Santa Barbara, a top-12 NCAA program.

From 1984 until he came to Loyola in August, 1988, Normand was an assistant at UCLA under Scates. He was also the athletic director and a physical education teacher at Crozier during that time.

Normand, who was primarily a strength and conditioning coach at UCLA, saw the Bruins win three NCAA titles in four years there. He also coached several top junior national teams in 1986 and 1988.

Leaving a top-notch program for a struggling one at Loyola wasn’t easy for Normand, but he says that overall it has been a positive experience.

“In some ways it was tough coming to LMU, “ he said, “but we’ve won more games than they’ve won under any other coach in my first year. We beat Pepperdine last year, and that was the first time they’d ever done that. The progress is what’s kept me going.

“I mean, I’ve lost more games here (Loyola) than I’ve lost in my whole coaching career, and that’s spanning 15, 16 years. But the improvement overshadows it all.”

Normand says the key to his teams’ success is that players are always physically and mentally ready to perform to their maximum potential. He lists the essentials to succeed in any sport: self-discipline, the ability to overcome fear and pain, never giving up on yourself and being truthful to yourself.

“I never ask anybody to do anything I haven’t done or couldn’t do myself,” Normand said. “I’m not a fat guy with a cigarette asking my players to run laps.”

He’s a tough disciplinarian, but he doesn’t expect the impossible from a little fish in a huge pond. Normand realizes that his Loyola team has a long way to go before he can get the kind of notoriety he detests.