Victory Spiked With Values : Buena Girls Volleyball Coach Combines Role as Officer and Mentor

Jack Richards is looking for a few tall women.

Cop by day, coach of the Buena High School varsity girls volleyball team by night, the Ventura police officer is constantly on the lookout for long-limbed girls to spike and block his team to victory.

He looks out a window on a recent lunch break at Hamburger Habit in downtown Ventura and points to a lanky teenager at a table outside.

“Look,” he said, “there’s one. But she already plays for Nordhoff.”

In his 13 years on the beat in Ventura, Richards has worked to protect elders from abuse, curb gang behavior and introduce police dogs to the community. He has also worked with children and schools--most recently on the drug abuse resistance education, or DARE program.

He patrols the streets 12 1/2 hours a day, three days a week, mostly on weekends so he can coach during the week.

But off the beat, volleyball is his passion.

The father of three girls, and a former club and junior college volleyball player himself, he cares about women, sports and children.

As a coach and a cop, Richards is an example of how community based policing can work at its best. He has made inroads into the community, its youth and their families, through his girls volleyball team.

He has helped his players think better of police. They come to him asking questions and seeking advice for themselves and their friends.

He also has gotten other police officers involved in the girls volleyball program. His beat partner from last year is now an assistant coach.

In some cases, his influence reaches beyond the girls to their families.

“Think about it, that’s families of 18 girls volleyball teams over the last 10 years,” he says. “That’s a lot of people.”

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It was Week 1 of volleyball season.

At 5:45 a.m. at San Buenaventura State Beach 38 girls were churning up the sand running, rolling and leaping. They trained so hard some of them vomited.

In the afternoons they were back for two more hours of skills training.

Week 2 the girls were at it in the Buena High School gym.

Richards pulled into the school parking lot in his patrol car at 4:45 p.m. and went to the gym. He wore the sneakers, shorts and T-shirt he had had on since 2 a.m. under his bulletproof vest.

Officer Rick Payne dropped by on his dinner break. As he stuffed a candy bar into his mouth, he tossed balls to Richards.

Balls ricocheted across the court like bullets in a war zone as the girls leaped into the air to spike them or dove to the floor to save them.

“You’d better get onto the ground; you don’t watch that,” Richards yelled out as one girl went for a ball halfheartedly and missed.

“Let’s go, pump it up, right now, Buena,” he yelled, pounding more balls into the air for a drill.

Another girl dove and slid squeaking across the gym floor on her stomach.

“Good girl, hit the ground,” he yelled. “Be aggressive, you gotta want it!”

Through his coaching--and his career--he champions women’s causes. For example, preventing domestic violence has been a priority since his days as a rookie cop in the San Fernando Valley almost 15 years ago.

Richards said his interest in women is inevitable because he has three daughters and a twin sister. And he cares about women’s self-image.

At practice he has players wear T-shirts, not tank tops, because he wants them to focus on the sport, rather than each other’s clothing.

“I think they are there to play volleyball, and not look at each other’s skimpy tops,” he said. “They are on their way to being adults. I want them to focus on the game.”

He said he tries to keep his cop identity out of coaching, but inevitably it leaks in.

“You can’t help but get involved as a cop when you’re a coach,” he said. “I’m their personal policeman.”

But that means policing with a personal touch, reminiscent of old-time beat cops in big cities.

As such, he plays an important role in strengthening the trust between teens and police officers.

His players say they know he is on their side. They all have his cell-phone number, his beeper number, his Ventura police phone number and his home number so they can reach him at any time.

“They know that if they have a problem they can come to me with it,” he said.

He says he never ignores something on the beat that one of his players does, but admits he can be a little soft on them.

“I’ve never given any of my girls a citation,” he says. “But I’ve stopped them and talked to them.”

In his 10 years of coaching--both club and high school volleyball--he has helped suicidal kids, kids with drug problems and kids with alcohol problems.

Sometimes his players call on behalf of their friends. Sometimes they call with questions of their own and say it is for a friend.

And in some cases, players have quit because of his policy forbidding the use of drugs and alcohol. Last year he lost a star player.

Richards said he often ends up serving as a police consultant for his players’ families.

“This weekend I dealt with a call from a parent about problems with a non-volleyball daughter,” he said. “Parents are calling, not just about players, but about their brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, uncles, aunts and grandparents. Someone just called me to ask if a Colorado license is good here in Ventura.”

His wife jokes that he should be paid for the calls for service he fields when he is off duty. On one recent Monday six of 10 calls at his house were questions from parents of volleyball players and their problems. He says much of what he does is counseling--an important part of police work that is often forgotten or ignored.

And the player-parent link can surface at the oddest times.

“I walk into some domestics and they say, ‘Jack, thank God you’re here,’ ” he said.

He said last year he got a call about two brothers of one of his players. They had stolen from a pet store a snake so expensive the case was to be prosecuted as a felony. But Richards said that because the snake was on sale its value was below the amount that qualifies a crime as a felony. The case was handled as a misdemeanor.

“I helped those two boys. I don’t want to say I got them off,” he said, “but I definitely helped get them down to a lesser charge.”

Sometimes he has even had to confront his own players while on duty. He has stopped one of his star players twice for speeding. Just last week she was caught going 55 mph in a 25 mph zone.

Another time he was driving down the highway when a car in front of him jammed on the brakes. He pulled up to talk to the driver, and it was one of his players.

“I expected him to be tougher,” said spiker Krystal McFarland, who played on the youth national team. Krystal got only a warning and a lecture.

His girls regard him with admiration and respect. They say he has improved their view of police officers.

“I don’t think I really liked police officers before,” senior Bohdana Saunders said as several other girls nodded in agreement.

Whatever the magic ingredient, Richards has whipped up a winning team.

Last weekend the Buena girls volleyball team won 11 straight games to claim victory in the Ventura Cougar Classic--the first tournament of the season. Three of Richards’ players--Krystal McFarland, daughter Jenee Richards and team captain Gina Aglietti--were among six players out of 170 selected to the all-tournament team.

Gina summed up her thoughts about Richards: “He’s not like a cop. He’s like a father figure. It’s like he’s a part of our lives. He’s always there.”