Coach looks toward future

Jon Stevenson knows volleyball.

“I’ve seen it all, I’ve almost done it all, but coaching I’m still learning,” Stevenson said.

He also knows how to be modest. As Cal Poly’s volleyball head coach last year, Stevenson helped bring the team to its first conference championship since 1984 and to the second round of the NCAA Tournament – at home nonetheless.

And don’t think Stevenson will settle for just that. After recently signing a contract extension good through 2011, he is prepared to achieve a far greater ambition.

“I want everything we do to be tracking toward our goal to win a national championship,” Stevenson said. “If I can bring everything together, if we can get some luck to fall into place and if everyone stays healthy, we can get a team that can certainly beat anyone.”

Although he’s only been at Cal Poly for two years, Stevenson isn’t just another coach passing through San Luis Obispo.

After graduating from UC Santa Barbara in 1980, Stevenson had intended to start a career in coaching. With the growth of beach volleyball at the time, however, he was able to become a professional athlete and was later inducted into various halls of fame, including the Professional Beach Volleyball Hall of Fame and the Nike Legends of Beach Volleyball.

After 15 years of touring the world playing beach volleyball, Stevenson’s career came to an end and it was time to return to coaching.

“When I came back into coaching, it was as though I had to pay dues all over again, despite the fact that I had a well-known name within volleyball circles,” Stevenson said.

If he had stayed with coaching out of college, Stevenson said he would have found himself established at an institution for the long haul.

Instead, he worked his way back up the ladder. Stevenson coached for Sonoma State from 2000 to 2001 and helped bring them from a 6-22 season to 22-11.

Then from 2002 to 2004, while at St. Mary’s College, he took a team that hadn’t had a winning record in 14 years to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.

To the surprise of St. Mary’s, however, Stevenson left the team and headed to Cal Poly.

“After taking St. Mary’s to No. 9 in the nation, people wondered why I left,” Stevenson said. “The reason was because that the people there did not appreciate volleyball the way that I knew that they did here at Cal Poly.”

When he left, he wasn’t alone. Cal Poly’s senior setter Chelsea Hayes transferred from St. Mary’s at the same time as Stevenson. She said that being on his team was one of the main reasons why she transferred.

“I’ve been with Jon for my fifth year now and I can’t imagine playing for anyone else,” Hayes said. “Jon is just an amazing coach and has a way of making teams reach their highest level.”

Hayes is an Atascadero native who led the Mustangs with 1403 assists last season and averaged 12.53 assists per game.

“The quality of athletes on this team are significantly superior to prior teams that I’ve coached in the sense of athletic ability and overall power,” Stevenson said.

Hayes said Stevenson’s efficient and effective practice method is what makes him a great coach and that is what allows him to get the best out of his players.

“In the past 10 years, I’ve been very serious about becoming a scientist of the sport,” Stevenson said. “When you’re a young coach you don’t think about why you’re doing what you’re doing. Now I’m one of the people to be on task with everything that I do by not wasting anyone’s time.”

Stevenson said with the improved athletes already on the team and the talented incoming players acquired for the next two years, he hopes to see the team in the hunt for a national championship.

“We’re the best trained team and we can take over the big schools that have superior athletes because of the systems we run,” Hayes said. “There are great things in store for us and I’m glad that Jon’s going to take us there.”

As Stevenson’s 50th birthday approaches in August, he is questioning what he wants to do and where he belongs.

“It’s been 38 years of my life in the sport of volleyball,” Stevenson said. “Wherever I am, I’m going to bring a lot to it. It is, in my opinion, critical that I have that support and I believe we do have it here.”

Although he doesn’t know what his plans are when his contract expires in 2011, what matters to him now is getting more standing room only crowds in Mott Gym.

“I have no intention of retiring.but right now it’s really more about getting more of the support that’s growing for our volleyball program both internally and externally. That’s really meaningful to me.”