Spartans lean on experience

Times Editor

 

In the province’s high school volleyball ranks, coaches Randy Moncks and Louise Bleier are well known.

Each has earned a high pedigree of success during their combined 57 years of coaching experience.

So when these two coaches teamed up to lead the Strathmore Spartans senior high school girls volleyball squad, teams around the league took notice.

“We’ve had a lot of reaction actually in the gyms that we’ve walked into,” laughed Bleier. “They’ve all just went ‘okaaaay – is this legal?’ That’s the first question they ask. Then the second question they ask is ‘do you have a boys team, because you two have never been together?’ 

“Then the third question is ‘are you serious?’

“So it has been an interesting reaction – anybody who has been around is going, ‘umm, okay, with those two together, this is not good for the rest of us.’

“So that’s kind of fun to watch (their) reaction.”

Moncks coached the senior high school boys team for years, before taking time off to coach his twin daughters in Standard with his wife Susan the last few seasons. After that team captured their seventh 1A provincial title last season, Moncks was looking to get back to coaching at the school he teaches in. Unfortunately, Strathmore has not had a senior boys team for a few years already.

Thus, the two coaching masterminds teamed up.

“Between the two of us, we can accomplish a lot of stuff in an hour and a half to two hour practice,” said Moncks. “(She has everything organized and arranged) and I just walk in and coach. It’s just simple …  all the paperwork is done.”

Both bench bosses had the pleasure of coaching their own children over the years. Now that their kids have moved on to play post-secondary, both coaches would like to get away once in a while to watch them play. With this year’s arrangement, they have that luxury of leaving the team in very capable hands. 

According to Moncks, despite their vast coaching experience, both he and Bleier are still students of the game. He finds that they are now learning from each other.

“I’m more of a drill guy and I want to see results right away,” said Moncks. “She calms me down to see the bigger picture.”

According to Bleier, she is thrilled to have a coach with Monck’s pedigree.

“An extra set of hands at practice, an extra volleyball mind out there (is huge),” said Bleier. “It is very relaxing for me to have Randy around – it’s been a good addition. When you have the experience that Randy brings to the court, you can never have enough of that. We can look at the same thing and see two totally different things, so we can just tweak it as we go.”

With the zone championship just weeks away, the Spartans are finally getting healthy after facing some injury issues. They have yet to have a full roster available for a game this season.

“(We’d like) to have everyone stay healthy and just see if we can establish a program that makes us a top three or four (team) in this zone again,” responded Moncks when asked what the teams goals are for this season. “That is our goal – to establish the Strathmore High School as a volleyball school and when (other teams) play us, they’re expected to be beaten or to have to play their best game to beat us.”