June 24, 2020 at 11:14 a.m.
RHS looking to Povolo's experience to lead volleyball turnaround
RHS looking to Povolo's experience to lead volleyball turnaround
RHS is hoping some veteran leadership will help the program start to build back to what was a conference championship-winning outfit just eight seasons ago.
Enter Jim Povolo, who was hired earlier this month to take the reins of the program.
"We're looking to be competitive this year with everybody we play," Povolo said. "That's the bottom line."
Povolo, a physical education instructor who came to the district last year, brings with him a volleyball coaching background that spans nearly two decades. He takes over after Brianna Scheuermann stepped down following two seasons at the helm. The Hodags were 2-71 overall, and 0-24 in the Great Northern Conference during that span. Povolo will be the team's fifth different head coach since 2013.
"I think the one thing that I will bring is experience," Povolo said. "Brianna was a very talented player, very talented person, but I think the one thing the program lacked last year and the year before was experience. That, I think, I will bring."
Povolo comes with a coaching resume that includes two stints as a varsity head coach. He was the head coach at Cudahy High School in the Milwaukee suburbs from 1999-2005 and head coach at Service High School in Anchorage, Alaska from 2015-2017. In the interim, he served as a middle school and junior varsity head coach and coached for the Midnight Sun Volleyball Club in Alaska. He returned to the lower 48 last year to be closer to family. Last year, Povolo served as a volunteer assistant coach for the RHS program.
"Jim volunteered himself the whole year. He wasn't a paid coach. He just helped out," RHS activities director Brian Paulson said. "So we know his passion for volleyball in there and the experience he brings us is something that our program, which has been struggling, to be honest, for some time. Hopefully, this can get us a jump-start."
In addition to experience, Povolo said he hopes to bring a strong level of communication between the coaching staff, players and parents. Perhaps the biggest change may come in how practices are structured. Whereas in the past the roster was quickly divided into varsity and subvarsity squads for practices, Povolo said he wants to see all levels of the high school program work together more often.
"We'll get all of the outside hitters working on the same drills together," he said, as an example. "We can still break it down into smaller groups within that position, but now you've got newbies to the program that are seeing our juniors and seniors play, and there's an opportunity for them to learn from the upperclassmen, to try to emulate what they're doing.
"I feel like the more that we can combine groups and make us all feel as one, I just think that's a better situation in the long run. We're certainly not going to do that so much that it hampers the development of each of the squads, because there's certainly a different speed of play across the board, but there's always something you can do, I think, that makes everybody feel a part of the program. Once we have buy-in to everybody's equal and we're all a part of this whole thing, that's where I think you have the long-term growth."
Povolo takes over under unusual circumstances, given the coronavirus pandemic. He is not allowed to have contact with his team until July 1, and only five contact days between July 1 and the scheduled start of fall practice Aug. 17. Open gyms and summer leagues would normally be underway but how much, if any, volleyball activity will take place prior fall practice remains to be seen.
"We'll move forward with what we are able to do, get as many ball touches - if it's individual ball touches, if it's with a family member or somebody you feel safe with, we're going to have to try to modify our preseason plan to allow whatever it is they allow us to do," Povolo said. "We want to do what they feel is safe for us to do and we're certainly not going to go beyond that."
As for the Hodags' incoming squad, the team graduated their lone all-conference player from last year in outside hitter Cynthia Beavers, along with three other seniors. Eight players from last year's varsity team are slated to return.
"We've got some returning players. We certainly have some great defensive specialists. We have some great net players. It's going to be kind of a process of trying to meld all those talents together to get the best lineups we can out there," Povolo said. "I think we need to get a little bit bigger in the front row, and if that means us playing a 6-2 (formation) so that we have a big right-side block to kind of experiment with some of those things. We do have skill. There's definitely skill and there's definitely athleticism. It's going to be a matter of finding the right combinations that's going to give us the best chance to be successful."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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