On-the-Job Training : Northridge’s Price Learned to Coach by Doing It and His Methods Have Paid Off After Early Miscues

Although some might consider it an upwardly mobile step, others considered John Price’s decision to coach the East men’s volleyball team in the Olympic Festival a tad strange. For a couple of reasons.

For starters, Price claims to have little use for any plot of real estate situated to the east of, say, Ontario. That’s Ontario, Calif., not Ontario, Canada.

Also, Price had plans for this summer, and few of them had anything to do with coaching volleyball. He had enough of that during the spring, when he guided Cal State Northridge to a 22-7 record and third in the final national poll.

But when duty called (actually, it was a representative of the national governing body for volleyball), Price answered on the first ring.

It hasn’t always been that way. During his years at Crespi High, Price figured he would probably become an attorney someday. That prospect no longer appears likely. Price is 32 years old now and has learned to sketch with a pencil when charting his future.

“When I got the Northridge job, I didn’t think I’d be doing it two years later,” said Price, who has completed six seasons with the Matadors. “And if you would have asked me two years ago if I would be doing this still, I would have said I didn’t know.

“It’s not like I always dreamed of being a coach or that this is what I always wanted to do with my life. I just happened to stumble into something I enjoy.”

It’s a good thing, too, because Price says he would probably not survive a structured 9-to-5 routine.

At Northridge, Price receives half of a full-time coach’s salary which, together with a part-time teaching income--he instructs some physical education classes--pushes him comfortably over $30,000 per year.

“I’m getting good money for what I’m doing. At least for me,” Price said. “I mean, it’s almost like a joke. People talk about going to work the next day and I say, ‘Well, I’ve got practice. . . .’ ”

And, at least once a week, he has a shift behind the counter of a Burbank sandwich shop. Price has held the job for years and has no desire to quit.

“I don’t want to lose the extra-money option,” he said. “I could probably get by without it, but I don’t want to.”

The same probably could be said of volleyball, and Price’s early years as the coach at Northridge in particular.

Price first applied for a coaching job shortly after he finished playing at Northridge. Price and his roommate, Dave Rubio, were the finalists when Pierce College Coach Ken Stanley advertised a position for an assistant.

Rubio, now the head women’s coach at Cal State Bakersfield, won out. But Stanley led Price toward another job, this one coaching the Thousand Oaks High girls’ team.

Price coached at Thousand Oaks four seasons before Northridge Coach Walt Ker hired him as an assistant for the Matador men’s team in 1985.

A year later, Ker decided that coaching the women’s team in the fall and the men’s team in the spring was stretching him too thin. The Northridge job was open.

The position wasn’t considered a plum. Although Northridge played against the best--UCLA, USC and Pepperdine included--the salary was only $3,500.

“No one applied,” Price said, “except me. And that was only with a lot of coaxing from Walt.

“I didn’t think I was ready. I didn’t think I was good enough. And I wasn’t. I was right.”

The Matadors won just 10 of 38 matches in Price’s first two seasons as coach. Still, he can be credited with literally saving the men’s volleyball program at CSUN.

“The bottom line was, we were afraid the program would get dropped if I didn’t take it,” Price said. “That’s really the main reason I went for the job.

“I was pretty realistic. We were limited in every possible way, including coaching . . . It was nice in a sense. Everything we did surpassed expectations because there weren’t any.”

Price went to great lengths to keep his “mouth shut and ears open” in his first seasons as coach, though oftentimes he sacrificed the respect of his players.

Neil Coffman, an All-American outside hitter last spring as a senior, said that shortly after he transferred to Northridge from UC Santa Barbara four years ago, it became apparent that several of the Matadors’ players knew volleyball as well as their coach did.

“Not to be rude, but you could tell right away,” said Coffman, who starts at outside hitter for Price’s Olympic Festival East squad. “John would set up a drill and we’d start to run it and then the players would be like, ‘This isn’t going to work. Let’s run it this way.’ So it would change.”

It took four years of coaching at Northridge for Price to establish a coaching philosophy he believed in. “And until I did, it was a terrible situation for the players and for me because I was constantly questioning what I was doing and the players were questioning what I was doing,” Price said.

“It was a million different things, like blocking technique or something. I had the way I learned and then someone would say, ‘This is the way we did it.’ So I’d say, ‘I kind of like that. You’re right.’ That’s just a terrible way to coach. But that’s the way it had to be because I was learning.”

But two years ago, the hours spent poring over videotape, attending coaching clinics and learning by trial and error began to pay off. A new influx of players were brought into the program and Price seized the opportunity to establish a set of ground rules.

Under his new philosophy, Price was still open to suggestions but, unlike times past, the player would have to convince Price his idea was better than the coach’s. And there would be more discipline.

Practice was run with a renewed sense of discipline and players were held to a code of conduct both on and off the court.

“In the first few years, we had some people who never developed a strong sense of respect for me as a coach because I was wishy-washy,” Price said. “I understood that, but there was nothing I could really do about it until those guys left and a new group came in.”

Coffman says now there is “a known respect” for Price.

“A lot of coaches act like they are the all-knowing gods on the court, the players are just students and nothing else, but John, being open-minded, is willing to listen,” Coffman said. “He will use it if he thinks it’s appropriate. If not, he thanks you anyway.”

The difference, Price said, is that he is “not ‘not sure’ anymore.”

“I have a very strong opinion on just about anything,” Price said. “And now I can explain exactly why it is that I feel that way.”

As a result, CSUN is a combined 35-19 for the past two seasons and routinely has been listed among the top six teams in the nation. The Matadors twice have come within a point or two of advancing to the championship game of the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. tournament, an accomplishment that helped earn the Olympic Festival invitation that spoiled Price’s summer plans.

“I’m dealing with some great athletes here, so I ask them, ‘What do you guys think?’ ” Price said. “I don’t think it’s an insult or a lack of respect when players think they can make a drill better. Sometimes they’re right. They know. They’re the ones doing it.”