A Volley Cheer: Al Scates.

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WE'D SAY THAT ANYONE WHO CAN WIN MORE THAN 1,000 GAMES, 18 NCAA TITLES, AND RECORD AN .858 WINNING PERCENTAGE IN HIS 40 SEASONS OF COLLEGE COACHING HAS TO BE CONSIDERED A VOLLEYBALL GENIUS. WE KNOW YOU WEREN'T BORN ANYWHERE NEAR A VOLLEYBALL. SO WHEN AND HOW DID YOU BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH THE GAME?

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SCATES: I had just finished playing tight end on the Santa Monica College football team, and our football coach, Jim Powers, invited us to try out for the volleyball team he was going to coach. Since I had never played the game, I was an early cut, but I hung around and watched the guys for a while and I was really impressed with the game.

I decided to check it out at State Beach (in Santa Monica), where all the great beach volleyball players hung out in the late 50s. I used go down there early on weekends and work out with the best players in the game.

I was a rookie. But eventually I got better. Then I transferred over to UCLA and made the volleyball team.

COACH: Where did you go to high school and what sports did you play?

SCATES: I went to Westchester HS in Los Angeles and played basketball and baseball. I was a 6-foot-2 center and the highlight of my high school career was winning the Marine League championship for the first time in Westchester's history.

COACH: After transferring to UCLA in 1959, you were hopeful of making the basketball team, but the coach, a fellow by the name of John Wooden, wasn't impressed. So you turned your attention to volleyball. How did you fare under Coach Glen Egstrom?

SCATES: He was my volleyball coach as well as my advisor in kinesiology, which was my major. When I became captain of the team, Glen started letting me take over the team from time to time, which was a great coaching experience.

COACH: After becoming the head coach at UCLA, you played a prominent role in helping volleyball achieve status as an NCAA sport. How did that happen?

SCATES: When J.D. Morgan took over as AD in 1963, he became a force in the NCAA. He negotiated contracts with the networks for the basketball tournament.

In 1965, UCLA hosted a triple-header featuring the Japanese women's gold medal and men's silver medal teams from the 1964 Olympics. It attracted more than 5,000 paying customers to Pauley Pavillion. I played on the U.S. team that defeated the Japanese men's team for the first time.

COACH: Since volleyball coaches had trouble making a buck in those early days, you had to moonlight as a teacher in the Beverly Hills School District. What did you teach and how long did you continue to instruct?

SCATES: I wanted to play in the 1964 Olympics. So when I was hired as coach at UCLA, I was not allowed to accept a salary. To support my family, I taught physical education full-time in the Santa Monica School District for three years and then in the Beverly Hills School District for 32 years.

At one time or another--up until five years ago-I taught in every school in the Beverly Hills Schools District.

COACH: How did you recruit all those great players at UCLA, especially Karch Kiraly, who became the Michael Jordan of volleyball?

SCATES: We always look for the best athlete, no matter what position he plays. For example, I had Karch set at UCLA. If we have two good athletes at one position, we'll switch one of them to another position. We carry a lot of players, 28, more than any of our opponents. But we can only dress 12 because of the rules.

We coach on three different courts, with a coach at each, and we place a lot of emphasis on walk-on players. Since men's volleyball, like all men's Olympic sports, has had its scholarships cut by the NCAA, we have only four scholarships to offer.

Conversely, the women's team has 12 scholarships. We seldom have a full scholarship to offer. That's why we have to depend so much on walk-ons.

COACH: Back in your formative years there were no real mentors to learn from. What kind of approach did you use in coaching the game and how did you arrive at it?

SCATES: I started coaching on the national team in 1971 and I would just watch what the other teams in the world were doing. I borrowed a lot of my offensive ideas from the Asian teams back in the late 60s. Since they set a very quick offense, I started setting very quick sets.

By the early 70s, we were implementing the things that we run to this very day. So we had a big advantage in the beginning. We ran different routes than other teams and got the ball to a certain point faster than the opposing blockers.

COACH: Of all the great things you have accomplished in volleyball, which has produced the greatest personal satisfaction?

SCATES: I enjoy winning championships when we are not supposed to. With teams that are not as good as the opposition. That has happened a few times, when we were the lowest seed in the tournament and managed to get in and play well at the end. I enjoy peaking a team at the end of the season and playing the best we are capable of playing at that time.

Everything I know about coaching I learned from my high school coach, Bill Rankin, and from John Wooden. When John retired, he kept an office next to mine and we got to know each other pretty well.

He's the greatest coach this country has ever produced. I would watch his practices and model my volleyball practices after his. I'd employ a variety of drills with very little down time, quickly switch from drill to drill, and give directions very quickly and succinctly without stopping the pace of the drill. I learned those things by observation and from John's first book, which had nothing to do with volleyball and everything to do with coaching.

COACH: Can you explain the success and attraction of beach volleyball?

SCATES: All the good athletes who live in beach communities wind up playing beach volleyball. They play two to a side. It's quite an athletic sport because you have to cover the entire court with just two players. It requires a lot of endurance and a lot of energy to jump out of that sand. It's very tough to come off the hardwood and play in the sand. It really builds up your legs and recruits the quick muscle fibers.

COACH: What is the future of men's volleyball in this country?

SCATES: I think if our national team would leave Colorado Springs and practice at sea level, we could win some gold medals again. We have some great athletes coming up in the sport. We won two gold medals, in 1984 and 1988, and then we moved to altitude. Of course you can't serve hard under those conditions because the ball goes about five feet farther. So our men can't practice serving hard and receiving hard serves.

When they got down to sea level they began missing out on that vital part of their game. That's why it seems ludicrous to train in Colorado Springs.

COACH: What have been the biggest changes in the sport since you began coaching in Westwood?

SCATES: The rules change every four years following the Olympics and it changes the sport dramatically.

The growth of men's volleyball in this area and even across the country is amazing. We have 300 high schools playing in this area and we have a lot of good players. And there are 500 college men's club teams that compete every year for a championship.

COACH: What are the essential elements for "Developing a Championship Team," as detailed in your widely popular video on the subject?

SCATES: What you need to do is put six guys on the court who can control the net. Players who are explosive, who can jump well and jump quickly. Guys who can just get up and block.

All the teams that have won at UCLA have had very explosive players. They could get their armpits over the net, so when they blocked a ball they blocked it down--hard.

Guys are now hitting the ball 11 feet in the air and the net is only eight feet high. So volleyball has become a power game. The men's game is always won or lost at the net in. The women's game is starting to resemble the men's; where the strongest team at the net is winning.

COACH: What kind of offensive and defensive formations do you run at UCLA?

SCATES: Everybody is using just about the same offense--one setter and five hitters. That's the way it's played all over the world on every level of the game.

Everybody has found, copied, and borrowed things that work.

Basically you have five hitters on every play, two guys who come out of the back row and three who come out of the front row. The setters in the front row get the ball to the attacker, who jumps up and sends the ball over the net.

The backcourt players are tracking from behind the 3-meter line and the frontcourt players are running routes along the net, looking to attack anywhere.

COACH: How do you counteract the opposition?

SCATES: You keep track of what they are doing and try to make them change their attack and take away the things that are most successful. For example, if we want to block a quick set--when the spiker hits the ball as it is traveling up from the setter's hands--you have to jump with the attacker. In other words, you have to use up one blocker and if they don't set that attacker, you hope to go one-on-one with the other attacker.

You can have only three men block at the net. That's the problem. The other team can attack with everybody. But if they are passing the ball right to the setter, and they have a good, quick attack, you have to commit-block and give up one blocker to stop it. Otherwise, you won't stop it.

COACH: Can you describe the perfect volleyball player?

SCATES: His name is Karch Kiraly. We lost only five matches during his four-years at UCLA and he played on my first undefeated team in 1979. We went 31-0.

Sinjin Smith was the captain. He was a senior. Those two provided great competition at every practice. If I put them on two different sides of the court, it was extremely competitive because neither one of them could stand to lose to the other.

Karch played on my 1982 team that went 29-0. There have only been three undefeated teams in the history of men's and women's NCAA volley-ball and he played on two of them. We went 38-0 in 1984 and Karch was gone by then. He played on three NCAA championship teams and he gave it all he had at every practice.

INTERVIEW BY KEVIN NEWELL

PHOTO BY GETTY IMAGES