By Lexi Shurilla, fightingillini.com staff writer | @SusanAlexisS
The Illinois volleyball program has elected to keep its leadership in the Illini family as the volleyball staff now includes two former players and a former volunteer assistant. An AVCA All-American in 2010, Hillary Haen is in her first season as an assistant coach for the Illini, while Johannah Bangert - who holds the Big Ten record for career block assists - enters her second season with her alma mater as the Director of Volleyball Operations.
Haen and Bangert were teammates from 2007-10 and helped build the culture of the program into what it is today. Even though their roles are much different now, the former Illini are making an impact on the new faces of Illinois volleyball.
Same Team, New Roles
Haen and Bangert return to their alma mater, where they led the Orange and Blue to three straight NCAA Regional appearances in 2008-10. The pair were coached by Don Hardin as freshmen, before Kevin Hambly was promoted to head coach in 2008. Haen was the first setter Hambly worked with as head coach, and he is enjoying watching her flourish in her new position as part of his staff.
"Hillary was always kind of a coach on the floor," Hambly said. "We've had a really good relationship as far as how we communicated what needed to happen, especially when she was young. She was the first player I started to meet with regularly and try to manage what it's like to be a setter, so I think our relationship grew from there and it's been easy."
"It has been very interesting, very revealing I would say," Haen said of her coaching role. "Me and Jo always laugh, when you're a player, you know the coaches are in the gym with you and you know what they do when you see them, but you don't really have any idea what they do outside of the gym. It's a lot of hours, it's a lot of work, it's a lot of fun work, but I think we had no idea what the coaches did outside of when we saw them."
Haen was hired as an assistant coach for the Fighting Illini in January 2014. She serves as the recruiting coordinator and works directly with the setters in running the offense. The biggest change is the amount of hours that the coaches can put in depending on the week. Some weeks are very regular but once in a while they'll have a 70-80 hour week and that has its challenges.
"It's part of the job and it also makes the job fun, because you're in this grind that requires you to work really hard to beat out the competition," Haen said.
"I think she's still figuring out how to be a coach," Hambly said of Haen. "She's really embraced the teaching and the development of the setters. The reason I wanted her here is because I have three setters and I needed someone else to train them, because that's a lot.
"When she was here, there was just the one setter and I could just train her and I didn't have to worry about it and we had a good relationship. I brought her in for that and she's really embraced it. She's studied the technique of it. She was technically sound as a player, but she wasn't trying to master her technique, she was trying to win matches, which is why I liked her. She's figuring out what the technique is about and how to teach it, so that's been great."
Their relationship is similar today in that there is a lot of respect both ways. Hambly says Haen has great insight into the game and into the team dynamic. Except now she's held to a different standard and can't get away with the same things she used to as a player.
"My respect for her is growing all the time as I see her embracing her role, but our relationship is the same, it's just at a different level now," Hambly said.
Haen enjoys being able to be around the team in a different capacity and realizes how much work she used to put in as a player that she didn't even think about when she was on the team. She's still able to relate to what the team goes through, but now she enjoys watching them from the sideline.
"Once you're done, you're ready to be done," Haen said. "You just hit such a different stage in life that to imagine doing the things that they do is pretty tough. Now to imagine playing volleyball for five hours a day is like 'Wow, I don't know if I could really do that anymore.' You didn't even think twice about it when you were doing it, so it's fun to be on a different side. I don't desire to be them anymore. I like this role."
Relationship Dynamics
Bangert's role is very different than Haen's. Bangert joined the Illini volleyball staff in January 2013 as director of operations. As the director of operations, she takes care of all the day-to-day tasks of the program, arranges travel plans and keeps Hambly on schedule. Hambly jokingly said that the roles are almost flipped now with her taking care of him, when he used to take care of her, but that they have grown closer because they spend more time together than when she was a player.
Hambly had known Bangert wanted to be a director of operations since she was a sophomore in college, so when the position became available, he knew who he wanted to fill it.
"I love it, it's perfect for me," Bangert said. "It's very organized and detail-oriented and I have a lot of fun with it. It's stuff that I actually enjoy doing which I think is unusual for a lot of people. But I'm still at all the practices and travel and everything, so it's nice to be a part of the team and still get to know the girls, but in a different role."
"Jo and I both came back because we're super passionate about what we do here," Haen said. "We really believe in the culture, we really believe in the way that we treat our athletes. We want to win national championships and go after it in the gym and play the best volleyball we can, but we also won't sacrifice our athletes to do that. We want them to be the best students and the best people they can be too. Having that experience ourselves, we're like, 'Why wouldn't we want that for them?'"
Also in his first year as an assistant coach is former volunteer assistant, Scott Leserman, who was a manager and volunteer coach while earning his master's degree from Illinois in 2009-10. He returns to Champaign from Northwestern, where he served as an assistant coach during the 2012 and 2013 seasons. Because the group works so closely together, Bangert and Haen have a lot of fun with their new positions and working alongside their former coaches. The main difference is that now they get to spend a lot more time with them.
"Kevin, the two of us, and Scott, we've all been together before so our level of communication and the way we work together is really easy because we've done it before," Bangert said. "In that regard, it makes things simple. But also, when we're not working it's a lot of fun, because we really know each other and get along and we like each other."
Growing the Illinois Family
The former players both have a lot of pride for the University and even more for the volleyball program. It's something they were a part of and helped build. They came back to continue that tradition.
It's safe to say that having former players on staff has made a big impact on recruiting new Illini. When Hambly called Haen, he knew it was a no-brainer for her to come back. She had been coaching high school and club volleyball and she was ready to take it to the next level at Illinois. She jumped at the chance to coach at her alma mater.
"Recruiting-wise, it's invaluable to have her in recruiting as a former player," Hambly said. "She played for me, she had a good relationship here and helped establish the culture we have now. That's been invaluable, because she can speak from her experience of what it was like to be here at Illinois and play for me. She has been a part of the program and is really proud of how it's grown over the last several years. It's easy for her to talk about her experience, and talking about her experience is selling it enough."
Almost more than anything, the best part of having former players on staff is it makes work a blast. Haen and Bangert laughed and said that it's obviously wonderful getting to spend so much time with Coach Hambly. As members of the staff, they are more of his peers than the players, so he lets them in on more information and decision-making. Bangert said that Hambly is very open and direct when you're a player, and it's the same thing when you're on staff. They also agreed he lets his guard down a little more now, which makes for a lot of laughs for all of them.
There are plenty of times when they catch themselves reminiscing about something that happened; a 'Do you remember when?' or a 'I can't believe this happened...' will start a whole slew of nostalgic conversation.
"It means something different when you've played and coached here," Hambly said. "They expressed how much they wanted to come back and be a part of it and it was something I wanted them to be a part of too. I felt like there were great options out there who were Illini. I've talked to other coaches about it who have former players on their staff. It's a great connection to have and it really makes a difference in the program."
