Science Course : ‘Professor’ Lu Brings Technical Approach to CSUN Volleyball

The year was 1987 and Lian Kang Lu could not believe what he was hearing.

Lu, then an assistant women’s volleyball coach at UC Santa Barbara, had asked David Rottman, an All-American outside hitter on the Gaucho men’s team, to explain the proper hitting technique for a cross-court kill.

Rottman was unable, despite having blasted thousands of cross-court kills during his career.

“He said it was just something he did,” Lu said with a chuckle. “He said he had never thought about it, he had just done it.”

To Lu, who took over the women’s volleyball program at Cal State Northridge this year, such a statement would be considered a sacrilege.

Lu, one of the top technical coaches in the world who is affectionately known as “The Professor,” says there is a correct technique for everything a player does--serving, passing, setting, spiking, blocking or defense. Nothing is just done .

In a similar vein, he maintains that for every offensive action that occurs during a match, there is a proper defensive reaction. Call it Lu’s theory of volleyball relativity.

Volleyball might seem simple, but Lu treats it as science.

Nothing is as simple as it appears for Lu, 59, a founder of the South China volleyball training base that produced women’s teams that won World Cup titles in 1981 and ‘85, the Olympic Games in 1984 and the World Championships in 1982 and ’86.

Spiking might seem like a straightforward task, but Lu has designed instructional charts that list 20 different ways to hit the ball. “The type of options you use will depend on the strengths and weaknesses of the team you are playing,” Lu said.

Of course, even if a player grasps the myriad techniques Lu teaches, that player must put the knowledge to use in the heat of competition, when split-second decisions are required.

That is where Lu’s detailed training regimen comes into play.

Having broken volleyball into six basic components--serving, passing, setting, spiking, blocking and defense--Lu’s training revolves around his belief that a player must be competent in what he calls main skills areas before advancing to auxiliary skills and top skills.

“Everything I teach is like a little block, and it takes many, many blocks to make up a big building,” Lu said.

Junior Heather Anderson, who has been a starting outside hitter at Northridge for the past two seasons, has already noticed the training differences between Lu and Matador predecessors Walt Ker--who coached the team from 1979-92--and John Price (1993).

“We practice a lot more without the balls,” Anderson said. “We do a lot more footwork and wrist work than we did before. We do a lot more agility drills where you get to know how your body moves. . . . Before, we just went out and played, but now we know exactly what we’re going to do on any given play.”

As an intense, vocal and demonstrative coach, Lu, who coached at Santa Barbara from 1984 through 1993, has been known to lose his cool every now and then. But UC Santa Barbara junior Chrissy Boehle says that “99% of the time, his coaching is very positive.”

“He gets angry,” Boehle said. “He gets upset at times, but it’s usually done in a very positive way.”

Anderson says that criticism is applied in a very direct and forthright manner.

“He is very on the table with everything,” she said. “He lets you know what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are right from the start.”

Lu is equally candid with reporters.

Asked his first impressions of a Northridge team that compiled a 12-17 record last season, he said: “Blocking is our strength. Defense is our weakness. The girls are working very hard, but they have a long way to go.”

Lu’s ability to physically demonstrate what he wants done on the court could be one of his greatest assets as a coach.

Although he is a month away from his 60th birthday, Lu is in superb physical condition and takes pride in demonstrating the proper technique for a belly slide, a sprawl, a roll or a half-roll after digging a ball.

“My age is old, but I don’t like people to know about it,” he laughs. “Forget my age. Remember my shape and great demonstrations.”

A need to illustrate exactly what he wants done is not the sole reason for Lu’s adherence to a daily training regimen. He is convinced that an energetic coach can elevate a team’s play to another level.

“If you don’t have energy, your team will be down,” he said. “But if you have a lot of energy, a weak team can be good and a good team can be great.”

Lu said his assertive personality and upbeat manner are products of a demanding childhood.

The youngest of five children, he was born in Shanghai on May 4, 1934. Although his parents were employed, Lu said his family was very poor and that “life in China was very hard.”

“Being very poor made me strong-willed, outgoing and aggressive,” he said. “I have to be that way to get what I want.”

As a multitalented athlete who competed in volleyball, basketball, soccer, gymnastics and table tennis, Lu spent much of his childhood living with friends because “their parents liked the fact that I could teach their children sports.”

Like millions of his countrymen, however, Lu’s life was altered dramatically in the aftermath of the Chinese civil war, which pitted the Communist forces of Mao Tse-tung against Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his nationalist army.

The war began in 1946--shortly after World War II and China’s liberation from Japanese rule--and ended in 1949 when the Communists defeated the nationalists and drove Chiang Kai-shek and his supporters to the island of Taiwan, where they established Nationalist China.

Lu’s father and sister had been living in Taiwan during the war because economic opportunities there were better, but in the aftermath, travel between the island and the new People’s Republic of China became severely limited and remained that way until the early part of this decade.

Lu’s parents never saw each other again--his mother died in 1976, his father in 1991--and he and his three brothers never saw their father again.

Lu and his sister, Jin, were reunited in 1992 after 43 years, yet he seems to take solace in the fact that a separation like theirs was commonplace in postwar China.

“It was very sad, very tough for our family,” Lu said. “But a lot of families were like us. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, went through the same thing.”

Shortly after the civil war ended, Lu turned his athletic attention to volleyball.

He was a setter on the city of Beijing’s professional team for most of the 1960s and played on the national team several times during that period.

From 1968-81, he coached the Beijing women’s team, and in 1982 and 1983, he coached the Mexican women’s national team after being encouraged to do so by Ruben Acosta, now president of the International Volleyball Federation.

It was during the 1970s and early 1980s that Lu earned his reputation as one of the world’s top technical coaches.

Arie Selinger, the U.S. women’s coach in the 1984 Olympic Games, Doug Beal, the U.S. men’s coach in ‘84, and Marv Dunphy, the U.S. men’s coach in ‘88, are among the people who consider Lu a volleyball guru.

Selinger helped Lu land the assistant coaching position at UC Santa Barbara, where he helped Kathy Gregory guide the Gauchos to a 231-121 record in 10 seasons.

Santa Barbara qualified for the NCAA Division I playoffs during each of those years and was annually regarded as one of the top defensive teams in the nation.

Lu does not foresee instant success at Northridge, however.

He inherits a program that is expected to have five senior starters next season, but Lu figures it will take two or three years before the Matadors--with a roster comprising players he recruited--completely reflect his coaching philosophy.

Moreover, it might be another year or two before Northridge can rid itself of the stigma surrounding the program and the resultant recruiting disadvantage in the wake of Ker’s sudden resignation in January of 1993.

Ker, who guided the Matadors to a 401-144 record over 14 seasons, cited “family considerations” for his decision.

Later it was learned that Ker’s resignation came after two Northridge players filed a written complaint accusing him of sexual harassment. Other former players also alleged that in the early 1980s, Ker had consensual sexual relations with team members.

Price, who guided Northridge to a runner-up finish in the NCAA men’s championships last year, replaced Ker on a one-year interim basis after the four finalists for the job declined the position.

Although Northridge won three NCAA Division II titles during the 1980s, the Matadors have qualified for the playoffs only once since moving to the Division I level in 1990.

“It is impossible in one year to be successful,” Lu said. “You must be prepared to fail because your most-successful experiences are when you fail, not when you succeed.”

Lu is painfully aware of the difference in the way the Matador men’s and women’s teams are perceived.

“(John Price) can go to recruits and say, ‘We finished second in the nation,’ ” Lu said. “Because of the program’s success, his voice will be very loud and very strong. But it is different with the women’s team. . . . Some people still don’t know that Northridge is a Division I program.”

So why did Lu come to Northridge, where he will have to battle traditional powers Cal State Long Beach, UCLA, USC and UC Santa Barbara for recruits?

More than anything, he wanted a collegiate program to call his own.

Although he is grateful for the opportunity at UCSB, it was Kathy Gregory who got the credit. She was Northwest Region coach of the year in 1986, ’90 and ‘93, the Big West coach of the year in 1990 and ‘93, and the Division I coach of the year last season.

“At UCSB, the head coach recruited and handled other matters,” Lu said matter-of-factly. “I handled everyday training and year-round training. But at the end of the season, she was the one who got this award or that award.”

Despite the esteem he holds in the volleyball community, it seems that “The Professor” would like to win a few awards of his own at Northridge.