Boston College Athletics
Volleyball Ready to Pour Foundation in 2018
August 21, 2018 | Volleyball, #ForBoston Files
Winning will be a byproduct of a culture built through collaboration.
When the Boston College volleyball team opens its 2018 season this week, it will in many ways be the start of the new era. The Eagles have a new head coach, and it will be one of the first public unveilings of a new style implemented. Those first official matches mean wins and losses start counting for real.
But in many ways, the Jason Kennedy era began months ago, when he arrived on campus as the Eagles' new head coach. Boston College tasked him with building a winning team, but he's always acknowledged that winning is a byproduct of a culture he intends to build, brick by brick, with the team helping lay the foundation.
"I think it's important that we play well," Kennedy said. "The results will come if we play well. We want to play well and be better each week. The results will eventually show for themselves. If we win matches and we're not playing well, I understand what that looks like on paper, but that's not what we want to be."
Winning is an important part of any coach's job, but Boston College has always been about founding a culture. Kennedy began building that culture in his first days on the job in the spring, and six months later, he's now working collaboratively with his student-athletes as the season bears down.
"Things are going well," Kennedy said. "We've changed a lot of the things that we've been doing. The team is responding well, and we're figuring out a little bit of a lineup. We're seeing who will play where, and I think that puts us right on track with where we should be. These few weeks, as always, are a good test to just see how good we can be.
"Anytime you take anything over, it's a little awkward," he said. "You have 20 new faces, and for us as a coaching staff, we're learning about them and they're learning about us. Now that we've gotten through spring and the first week of double days, everyone is getting more comfortable. That's why the level of play is going up. (The student-athletes) understand what we're asking, and we're understanding what makes them tick."
BC is, as a result, starting to turn the wheels forward. The Eagles will look very different in style this year, even though the faces are largely the same.
McKenna Goss and Cat Balido, for example, are the team's returning scorers. They're the kind of players BC will largely depend on for individual scoring after combining for over 500 kills and 300 digs last season.
But there are others who are stepping to the forefront, including sophomores Clare Naughton and Amaka Chukwujekwu. "Clare is a bit of a dark horse," Kennedy said. "She's had a strong spring, and she worked hard all summer to get ready for the fall. I think she's going to turn heads in how she can generate velocity and be a force at the net."
Chukwujekwu, meanwhile, is the rare kind of athlete capable of making an immediate impact on the floor. She broke the program record for single match attack percentage last season against Pitt when she hit 11 of 13 kills with no errors.
"Amaka is such a superior athlete," Kennedy said. "The more we can harness her athleticism, the more efficient she will become with her movement. The ceiling is really so high on an athlete like that. She's doing things in practice that she couldn't do in the spring and she's really grasping the concepts of how we want her to play at the net."
It's the first formations of a program that changed its style with its new head coach. Kennedy brought a fast-paced style built on speed and velocity to The Heights, and he's used it to completely revamp the way the Eagles will play against opponents in the upcoming season. It's taken some getting used to, but BC is showing its coach some progress.
"We're going to be fast," he said. "We'll try to make teams uncomfortable that way. When you try to do that, it's high risk and high reward in the system. There are days when things click and we look pretty good, and there are days where we struggle. What's been good is that we're sticking with it. We haven't backed off the velocity, and we aren't backing off playing fast. Nobody backs off."
It will be a completely different look for a team competing in the up-and-coming ACC. The league doubled its NCAA Tournament slots from 2016 to 2017, earning six slots in last year's bracket.
"Every year, the ACC gets more and more teams into the tournament, and it had the third-most teams of any conference last year," Kennedy said. "It's going to be a grind, and I know it's going to be that way. I'm not as familiar with the ACC styles yet, but as a coach, I think you need to see that style a couple of times before you start figuring out (how teams play). I do know the coaches are going to be good. Everyone is going to be well prepared. We're just going to do the best we can and have a better understanding of how things work by the time we get into October and November."
That ability to assess and reassess is what will make the Eagles stronger, starting with 2018. The volleyball season is spread out over parts of four to five months, and it's one of the longest seasons of the academic calendar. So compartmentalizing and resetting becomes critical for a team looking to build a culture and foundation for elite levels of competition.
"We mentally break the season into three or four segments," Kennedy said. "We have non-conference matches for the first few weeks, then we jump into the first part of conference play for about four weeks. Then it's another four weeks to finish out strong. So it's about a reset. Every four weeks, we have to be able to reevaluate and take what we've learned for the right mindset, and we need to be able to reset for our goals for the next block of time.
"You can't look at the schedule from August to November," he said. "That's overwhelming. We have to have to look at it for the next few weeks to see what we want to accomplish and then evaluate to get the most of what we can in the next four weeks after that."
BC opens its season this weekend in the Power Gym when it hosts the Boston College Invitational. The Eagles will play Hartford on Friday before taking on both Providence and Sacred Heart on Saturday.
But in many ways, the Jason Kennedy era began months ago, when he arrived on campus as the Eagles' new head coach. Boston College tasked him with building a winning team, but he's always acknowledged that winning is a byproduct of a culture he intends to build, brick by brick, with the team helping lay the foundation.
"I think it's important that we play well," Kennedy said. "The results will come if we play well. We want to play well and be better each week. The results will eventually show for themselves. If we win matches and we're not playing well, I understand what that looks like on paper, but that's not what we want to be."
Winning is an important part of any coach's job, but Boston College has always been about founding a culture. Kennedy began building that culture in his first days on the job in the spring, and six months later, he's now working collaboratively with his student-athletes as the season bears down.
"Things are going well," Kennedy said. "We've changed a lot of the things that we've been doing. The team is responding well, and we're figuring out a little bit of a lineup. We're seeing who will play where, and I think that puts us right on track with where we should be. These few weeks, as always, are a good test to just see how good we can be.
"Anytime you take anything over, it's a little awkward," he said. "You have 20 new faces, and for us as a coaching staff, we're learning about them and they're learning about us. Now that we've gotten through spring and the first week of double days, everyone is getting more comfortable. That's why the level of play is going up. (The student-athletes) understand what we're asking, and we're understanding what makes them tick."
BC is, as a result, starting to turn the wheels forward. The Eagles will look very different in style this year, even though the faces are largely the same.
McKenna Goss and Cat Balido, for example, are the team's returning scorers. They're the kind of players BC will largely depend on for individual scoring after combining for over 500 kills and 300 digs last season.
But there are others who are stepping to the forefront, including sophomores Clare Naughton and Amaka Chukwujekwu. "Clare is a bit of a dark horse," Kennedy said. "She's had a strong spring, and she worked hard all summer to get ready for the fall. I think she's going to turn heads in how she can generate velocity and be a force at the net."
Chukwujekwu, meanwhile, is the rare kind of athlete capable of making an immediate impact on the floor. She broke the program record for single match attack percentage last season against Pitt when she hit 11 of 13 kills with no errors.
"Amaka is such a superior athlete," Kennedy said. "The more we can harness her athleticism, the more efficient she will become with her movement. The ceiling is really so high on an athlete like that. She's doing things in practice that she couldn't do in the spring and she's really grasping the concepts of how we want her to play at the net."
It's the first formations of a program that changed its style with its new head coach. Kennedy brought a fast-paced style built on speed and velocity to The Heights, and he's used it to completely revamp the way the Eagles will play against opponents in the upcoming season. It's taken some getting used to, but BC is showing its coach some progress.
"We're going to be fast," he said. "We'll try to make teams uncomfortable that way. When you try to do that, it's high risk and high reward in the system. There are days when things click and we look pretty good, and there are days where we struggle. What's been good is that we're sticking with it. We haven't backed off the velocity, and we aren't backing off playing fast. Nobody backs off."
It will be a completely different look for a team competing in the up-and-coming ACC. The league doubled its NCAA Tournament slots from 2016 to 2017, earning six slots in last year's bracket.
"Every year, the ACC gets more and more teams into the tournament, and it had the third-most teams of any conference last year," Kennedy said. "It's going to be a grind, and I know it's going to be that way. I'm not as familiar with the ACC styles yet, but as a coach, I think you need to see that style a couple of times before you start figuring out (how teams play). I do know the coaches are going to be good. Everyone is going to be well prepared. We're just going to do the best we can and have a better understanding of how things work by the time we get into October and November."
That ability to assess and reassess is what will make the Eagles stronger, starting with 2018. The volleyball season is spread out over parts of four to five months, and it's one of the longest seasons of the academic calendar. So compartmentalizing and resetting becomes critical for a team looking to build a culture and foundation for elite levels of competition.
"We mentally break the season into three or four segments," Kennedy said. "We have non-conference matches for the first few weeks, then we jump into the first part of conference play for about four weeks. Then it's another four weeks to finish out strong. So it's about a reset. Every four weeks, we have to be able to reevaluate and take what we've learned for the right mindset, and we need to be able to reset for our goals for the next block of time.
"You can't look at the schedule from August to November," he said. "That's overwhelming. We have to have to look at it for the next few weeks to see what we want to accomplish and then evaluate to get the most of what we can in the next four weeks after that."
BC opens its season this weekend in the Power Gym when it hosts the Boston College Invitational. The Eagles will play Hartford on Friday before taking on both Providence and Sacred Heart on Saturday.
Players Mentioned
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