UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK / JOHN WEYLER : Volleyball Coach Stocks Up on Some Big Guys

Andy Read walked into a no-win situation last year. OK, maybe it was a two-win situation, but he clearly wasn’t going to wear himself out at victory celebrations during his first year as men’s volleyball coach.

Irvine finished 2-20, 1-18 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. Strange as it seems, that was good enough to end the season ranked 17th in the country.

How can you have that record and be 17th in the nation?

“Easy,” Read says, managing a laugh. “Every night you play, you play somebody in the top 10. But you wouldn’t want to be in any other league because you always want to compete against the best and there is no better volleyball in this country than in this league, unless it’s down in San Diego (where the national team trains).”

Read coached at Marina High School from 1983-89 and led the Vikings to the Southern Section 4-A semifinals in ’87 and ’88. He was an assistant at Pepperdine the next three years and the year before he took over the Irvine program, the Waves won the NCAA title.

He knows what it takes to win on this level and he knew Irvine lacked the wherewithal to get the job done last season.

“There had been no recruiting done for that year and we had graduated a couple of good players,” Read said. “When we took the floor last season, we looked at our opponents and said, ‘Wow, we’re not as big, we’re not as strong, we can’t jump as high and we can’t hit as hard.’ We were just out-gunned.”

So Read went out to get some new weaponry. He recruited seven freshmen and one community college transfer and talked Leland Quinn, who set a school record for kills in his first two years at Irvine before quitting the team, into returning.

This season, Anteater opponents will be the ones looking up.

“We can put a team on the floor that goes 6-10, 6-9, 6-7, 6-4 and 6-4,” Read said. “We’re as big as any team in the country. We can hit with any team in the country. We can block as well as anybody and we’ve already proven that in the fall.

“It’s no longer a question of whether we have the ability. It’s now a question of whether we can sustain it game after game. Good teams can make the plays, but great teams do it again, again and again.”

Irvine doesn’t figure to reverse its won-loss record in one season, but the Anteaters, who open with exhibitions against Canadian club teams Dec. 31 and Jan. 2, are looking to claw their way into the top 10. And Read has set in motion a two-year plan he believes will put Irvine in the playoffs by 1995.

“I’d have a hard time settling for another season like the last one because I think we’re very talented,” he said. “But we’re also very inexperienced. We may end up starting four new players this year.

“We desperately needed to improve our size, our athleticism and our depth just so we could train at a higher level every day in the gym. But I hope this is the only time we ever have to recruit nine athletes in one year.”

All nine recruits are from Southern California, including three freshmen from Orange County, Evan Alexander (Capistrano Valley), Greg Sternchak (Santa Margarita) and Kevin Dake (Woodbridge).

“Without question, this is the place to be,” Read said. “If we can get a couple of good Orange County kids a year, we can be really good. In men’s volleyball, you can only give 4 1/2 scholarships. We’re at 1 1/2 right now, so we’re not that far behind, and I hope we can have a full number of scholarships in three years.

“If we can’t win a national championship in volleyball at Irvine, then we’re doing something wrong.”

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Coming to pass: Read landed Sternchak, a highly touted 6-7 left-hander, with a promise of turning him into a passer, which is the volleyball equivalent of telling a hot young quarterback you’re going to use him as a punt returner.

“He was a middle blocker at Santa Margarita and most people recruited him as an opposite hitter,” Read said. “But I told him we’re going to make him a passer. He’s going to get the chance to start here as a freshman and we’re going to work on his passing for four years and it’s going to really improve his chances of making the national team.

“The rest of the world has guys from 6-5 to 6-8 passing and we have guys who are 6-3, so we can’t compete with the best teams in the world when it comes to blocking. If a guy like Greg can pass, his stock for the future goes way, way up.”

Read, a coach with the national team in the summer, isn’t doing this strictly for red, white and blue reasons. With Quinn returning at opposite hitter, Read has figured a way to put both players on the court at the same time.

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Who’s on the bench? Former Anteater Coach Bill Mulligan used this philosophy for success during his days at Long Beach Poly High: “After tryouts, I’d keep the top eight guys, cut the rest and then pick up four or five guys who didn’t mind cheerleading,” Mulligan said.

But Rod Baker isn’t so sure that the conventional wisdom of giving the majority of playing time to the top eight is always the best way to go. So far this season, 11 Anteaters are averaging nine or more minutes per game.

“I think the philosophy of not playing a lot of guys is only true when Nos. 9 and 10 are noticeably worse than one through eight,” he said. “At some point during the season, those guys near the end of the bench are going to have to play and I think I’d rather have them be a part of the rotation, even if it’s just little snips of time, and then expand their roles if necessary.”

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And then there was 12: Chris Brown, a 6-3 guard from Bakersfield College who was academically ineligible for the fall quarter--he needed to make up one class to transfer--is practicing with the team.

Brown, who averaged 19 points last year and made 130 of 310 three-pointers, could help the Anteaters’ shooting woes . . . if he can eke out some playing time.

Anteater Notes

Four Irvine athletes were named to the fall Big West All-Academic team Monday: sophomore volleyball player Popi Edwards (3.29 grade-point average in biological sciences); senior cross-country runner Todd Coulston (3.67 GPA in social ecology); senior cross-country runner Traci Goodrich (3.43 GPA in economics), and sophomore cross-country runner Tanja Brix (3.67 GPA in engineering). . . . Five Irvine representatives recently competed in the United States/Japan Goodwill Collegiate Regatta in Tokyo Bay. Sailing Coach James Malm and sailor Jonathan Posner participated along with Irvine alumni Geoff Becker, Randy Lake and Jennifer Browning. Lake, a former All-American, and Browning finished second in the Snipe class. Becker, also a former All-American, and Posner were seventh. . . . The men’s basketball team (2-2) is at the .500 mark for the first time since 1990.