Through It All, He Plays the Breaks : Volleyball: The obstacles are omnipresent, but, after more than 400 victories, SDSU Coach Rudy Suwara still charts a course for national prominence.

If you find yourself on a golf course with the San Diego State women’s volleyball coaches, and you might now that they are trying to get out once a week, the rules of the game--according to assistant Myles Gabel--are fairly straightforward:

The head coach gets to kick any ball he wants if he gets a bad lie.

Coaching mulligans are allowed.

How many?

“As many as the head coach wants,” Gabel said.

And so it was a few days ago on the Oak Glen course at Singing Hills. The fourth hole was about a four-iron away and Rudy Suwara, SDSU’s 400-victory coach, suddenly was thinking back to last Saturday when Brigham Young defeated the Aztecs.

There were certainly no coaching mulligans available to him then.

Had they won, the fifth-place Aztecs could have moved into a first-place tie in their initial Western Athletic Conference season. But they didn’t, and the WAC title appeared implausible and the NCAA playoffs were a distant possibility.

“We’re two points away from being a very good team,” Suwara said.

He shook his head, grimaced and then turned his attention to his club.

The man who earned the nickname Tasmanian Devil as a player for, among other things, screaming at opponents through the net, now plays golf, a game in which you need to know a few things about etiquette.

Most people go to the golf course because it’s a good place to hide from responsibility. Show up and forget your job. It’s just you, your partners, your clubs and the sand traps. Loser buys.

Suwara and his assistants go to talk volleyball. Yes, they enjoy golf and are serious about it. But in their office, the telephone rings, there is mail to answer and there is recruiting, always recruiting.

On the golf course, all is quiet. Suwara and assistants Gabel and Toshi Yoshida can discuss personnel and strategies without paperwork and visitors.

“I’m a coach, and so I thought (golf) would be a good way to meet potential sponsors,” Suwara said. “Also, it’s a great stress reducer. That’s what I need.”

It seems other coaches would need their stress level reduced. Suwara, 48, who has coached both men’s and women’s teams in his 25-year career, achieved his milestone 400th victory as the women’s coach at SDSU on Oct. 4 when the Aztecs defeated Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, 15-8, 15-10, 15-6. After victory No. 400, he got a note from SDSU President Tom Day, a plaque from Jayne Hancock, associate athletic director, and a bucket of ice water over the head from his team.

He always figured that if one of his teams tried the old ice water-over-the-head trick, he would duck out of the way before getting wet. Over the years, though, he has learned that things don’t always go as planned. One day, you think you’re wise to things, the next, you get wet.

Suwara grew up in Spanish Harlem, a New York neighborhood so rough, he said, he slept with a loaded gun when he was home alone. He made it out through school and volleyball.

He was turned on to volleyball when he saw a Yugoslavian named Gabriel Budishin play at a West Side YMCA in New York when Suwara was 16. He soon found that he could play volleyball better than most. So could his brother. Ernie Suwara made the 1964 U.S. Olympic team, and Rudy played on the U.S. national team from 1965-1972. He also was on the 1968 U.S. Olympic squad, the first American team to defeat the Soviet Union.

Suwara moved to San Diego in the mid-1970s from UC Santa Barbara when he accepted a position as player/coach with the professional Breakers. Finally, he became SDSU coach in 1976-77, guiding both the men’s and the women’s teams.

“The biggest change I’ve seen is that when I first came here, football was very successful,” he said. “There was a $500,000 surplus, we were expanding and making improvements.”

Suwara said his scholarship total went from one in 1977 to 12 in-state and two out-of-state by 1985. But those days didn’t last. Eventually, the athletic department got as deep as a half-a-million dollars in debt, and the bean counters started cutting. Today, the SDSU women’s volleyball program offers 12 scholarships, but none out of state.

At times, Suwara becomes frustrated. He has thought about taking other coaching offers, but then, another warm day shows up and Suwara remembers how much he likes San Diego.

Really, he just wants to coach. He keeps scraps of paper full of notes in his pockets, notes he writes in the middle of the night when thoughts of volleyball interrupt his sleep. Thoughts are fleeting, and he doesn’t want one to get away.

He gets his enjoyment from competition and game days.

“I like working with young people,” Suwara said. “It’s really fun.”

So he stays.

Twelve of his former players are now coaching, including Laurel Brassey Kessel at WAC-rival New Mexico. His wife, Colleen, volleyball coach at Grossmont College, was named Community College Coach of the Year last season. He has two sons, both married, and a new grandchild, Jamie June, who will be 2 in December.

“Being a grandfather is one of the greatest things in the world,” Suwara said. “Jamie is always happy to see me. In coaching, if you’re winning, people are always happy to see you. If you’re losing, they don’t want to know you.”

Through 25 years, more people than not have been happy to see Suwara. His overall women’s record--all at SDSU--is 405-188-3. In nine years of coaching men’s teams, at UC Santa Barbara (1971-74) and SDSU (1976-80, 1988), his record is 69-63.

“He has a complete knowledge of the game,” said senior outside hitter Angela Martin. “He knows every detail of every position.

“If you don’t understand something one way he’s saying something, he’ll find another way to put it. He’s got about 20 terms for each term.”

Some victories, of course, have been bigger than others. There was the time when SDSU defeated UCLA in the 1978 NCAA regionals, SDSU’s first victory over the Bruins. There was the 1982 team that defeated UCLA in the regionals at Pauley Pavilion. There was the 1986 team that started 23-0, including impressive comeback victories over BYU and San Jose State.

“He’s got a lot of strengths,” said Gabel, in his first year at SDSU after three years as a head coach at New Mexico State and nine years as an assistant at USC. “I think when you coach for a long time there are so many experiences you can draw from. There’s really nothing he hasn’t seen on the floor. He has a myriad of drills to help the team as a unit.

“He’s a good communicator. He does a good job at keeping the team cohesive. He plays a lot of people in a lot of different situations. Nobody feels like they’re the stars or the team revolves around them.”

That has been especially important this year. The WAC has added women’s sports, and SDSU is facing a tougher-than-expected schedule. Big West opponents were always difficult, and Suwara figured the WAC would be a bit easier. But after winning only two of their first five matches, the Aztecs have realized you can’t always get what you want.

Part of the problem is that Suwara, who is familiar with Big West teams, hasn’t seen any of the WAC teams in the past five or six years. But there is more.

“The biggest surprise in the WAC is that all of the other teams outdraw us,” Suwara said. “We played at Colorado State and they had 1,100. New Mexico had 1,150, BYU had 1,500. Those schools promote women’s volleyball.”

Not only do the Aztecs lack promotion, they can’t even practice on their own home court. They work out in a basement gym in the Physical Education building on campus. Peterson Gym is unavailable because of basketball practice.

There is nothing Suwara can do except wait for the construction of the Student Activities Center on campus and hope things get better. So he watches the football and basketball teams, hoping they will start winning. Maybe then the money will start flowing in again and the SDSU athletic budget will loosen up.

“We have been able to compete successfully with all of the other programs,” Suwara said. “We have shown we can be very, very good. What we need to be more successful are better practice times, the ability to practice on our own court and out-of-state scholarships. If we’re going to be able to compete on a national level, we have to recruit out of state.”

Suwara is concerned that the Aztecs haven’t been considered a national power since 1986. SDSU started that season 23-0 and ranked No. 1 in the country. Then Liane Sato, an all-Big West setter, suffered a knee injury, and SDSU stumbled. The Aztecs finished 37-9, fifth in their conference.

Since then, SDSU has finished 15-17, 26-12 and 19-18. And this season hasn’t been one for the trophy case.

“Disappointing,” Suwara said. “I can think back on three or four matches we just didn’t play well in. We have to do a better job of teaching the fundamentals. (A record of) 15-9 is not very good by San Diego State standards or by my standards.”

So Suwara heads for the golf course, his version of Camp David. He thinks and plots and wonders, and tries to break 100. He started playing seriously about a year ago. He figures by next year his goal will be to break 90.

“Golf is interesting to me now,” he said. “I have to discipline myself to learn something new. In order to improve, I’m going to have to find the time to get coaching and improve my technique. It’s good for me to try something new. The first time I’ve ever tried a sport, I’ve always been good at it. The first time I tried to juggle, I did it. Golf is different. I’ve been playing for a year. Some people shoot 80 to 85 after a year.

“I feel like if I’m humbled by a learning experience, maybe I’ll have more patience with people.”

The 18th green was fast approaching, and Suwara’s thoughts turned toward more imminent problems, like the loss to BYU and what to do with a team in need of a winning streak.

He looked like a man who could use a few coaching mulligans.