Coach fine-tunes formula for UW's volleyball success

By DAN RALEY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Volleyball?

Not interested.

Jim McLaughlin had a wave to catch, if not a drained swimming pool to navigate.

	Meryl Schenker / P-I
Washington volleyball coach Jim McLaughlin congratulates his No. 2-ranked and unbeaten Huskies after a dominating victory over Oregon in Eugene.

No chance that playing volleyball could measure up to these adventures. Sean Penn, pre-film stardom, was a surfer pal. Bob Dylan owned an inviting pool down the street, though the singer wasn't thrilled to see his then-teenaged neighbor flying up and down the steep sides of it on a skateboard.

From an accomplished volleyball player he became an even better volleyball coach. After directing men's teams to ultimate heights he smoothly shifted his inspirational leadership to the women's game. Lately, he's turned a once-floundering University of Washington program into a national power.

Over four-plus seasons, McLaughlin, 44, has crafted together a UW team that has no equal among the school's other 16 athletic offerings in terms of talent and results.

"The real studs are out here," UW men's basketball coach Lorenzo Romar said admiringly while wandering past a recent volleyball practice.

The Huskies are ranked second nationally behind the Nebraska Cornhuskers for reasons that aren't entirely clear. They have breezed through 20 matches with hardly a challenge. They have lost just five of 65 games with no harm done. They've been so overwhelming at times they trailed No. 22 UCLA only 7-6 in the first game and 1-0 in the second while beating the Bruins 30-24, 30-18 and 30-22 at home.

"Obviously, we feel dominant," said senior Sanja Tomasevic, a 6-foot-1 outside hitter from Serbia and Montenegro. "We know we're better. We know if we do everything we should, we know we're going to crush them."

Tomasevic and her UW teammates are cognizant of this for one reason. As sure as the tide goes out and comes in each day, McLaughlin promised them it would happen.

Hedges hired him twice

Volleyball was a girl's game. McLaughlin kept telling himself that.

McLaughlin could have kept going as a journalist, but he was offered a volleyball job at Pepperdine as a men's assistant coach. In his first year, he shared in a national championship. By 1990, then-USC assistant athletic director Barbara Hedges had hired him as the Trojans head coach, and he won another national title in his first season there.

	Meryl Schenker / P-I
Coach Jim McLaughlin goes over the game plan with his UW volleyball players and first-year assistant Jose "Keno" Gandara, back, prior to their home match with UCLA.

He was on a fast track, but he wasn't content. He kept studying the sport intensely. What he learned was this: He was on the wrong side of the net. There are 311 collegiate women's programs in operation compared to just 56 for men. McLaughlin readily made the switch to the female ranks, joining Notre Dame as a one-year assistant and rebuilding Kansas State's once sorry program for four seasons.

McLaughlin met with his inherited players, ninth-place finishers in the Pac-10. He informed them that change was coming in everything they did, that it would be difficult at times.

"I told them it was going to be uncomfortable," he said. "I told them early on that there is nothing comfortable about being great."

Molding a winner

McLaughlin's day starts at 7 a.m., running on a treadmill for an hour. He works into the evening. He doesn't do lunch. Too busy watching film or scripting a workout plan. Too busy obsessing over every detail. No detail is too small when you're building a national champion.

Leslie Tuiasosopo, former UW middle blocker and All-Pac-10 selection, had never heard of McLaughlin before he called her up and offered her an assistant coaching job. She still wasn't sure about him early on. He used a middle defense; she was used to rotating. He wanted to swing block; she had always slid.

"It was, 'Why do that?' " Tuiasosopo recalled.

None of it made sense, and then gradually all of it did. He charted and simplified everything. He turned his nose up at traditional methods and the Huskies made steady progress. They went from 11-16 to 20-11 in McLaughlin's first two seasons.

As a young coach, he learned through trial and error. He wrote down what he considered the 10 most important questions about coaching and started seeking answers. He visited or called up four of volleyball's leading teachers, including the cerebral Carl McGown, formerly the coach at Brigham Young. He received harsh feedback, with McGown tearing apart a study McLaughlin had painstakingly pieced together.

"In three hours, I learned more from him than in my whole coaching career," McLaughlin said.

Other coaches advised him that there weren't enough volleyball players in the Northwest to build an elite program at Washington. Nor would the better athletes elsewhere want to come to Seattle. He didn't listen to that.

Annually, the Huskies now receive 450 letters and e-mails from volleyball prospects seeking scholarships, and politely say no thanks to the vast majority.

"One percent of those have a chance to make our team," McLaughlin said.

The UW coach has four players who have earned All-America recognition of some sort over the previous two seasons. The elite players include Tomasevic; sophomore Christal Morrison, an outside hitter from Puyallup; junior Courtney Thompson, a setter from Kent; and senior Candace Lee, a defensive specialist, or libero, from Eugene, Ore.

So much for the local blackout.

"Morrison was a great get; that put (McLaughlin) over the top," said USC coach Mick Haley, who tried and failed to sign her, as did UCLA.

McLaughlin doesn't beg anyone to join him. He sells his program with promises the players will graduate, contend for a national championship and be groomed for national team play.

You can't get financial aid unless you're capable of starting for McLaughlin.

You can't join the team in any manner unless you're capable of fending for yourself in a match. The coach wants it competitive.

He found Lee playing out of position in high school, barely drawing any recruiting interest. He promised her a scholarship for three years. She had to pay her way as a freshman. She could be a future Olympian.

Tomasevic, named national player of the week after the Huskies swept California and Stanford in the Bay Area, was McLaughlin's first big recruit. She's a national team player in her country and older than most after letting three years pass before pursuing college. War prevented her from readily taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test. A knee injury wiped out a season. Still, up to 35 universities sought her services, whispering whatever she wanted to hear.

"Every other school was telling me, 'You're going to be an All-American,' " said the 25-year-old European player, a second-team All-American in 2003. "I didn't know what an All-American was. But I loved the attention."

Tomasevic and McLaughlin shared a 4 a.m. phone call, Seattle time, that didn't go well. There are some things the UW coach won't guarantee, whether it's morning, noon or night. Playing time heads that list. She asked for some assurance of her role. She got none.

"She said, 'Other coaches are telling me I'll be their best outside hitter,' and I said, 'Then go there,' " McLaughlin recalled.

"My dad gave me the lecture of my life," Tomasevic said. "He said, 'Can't you tell all these people are telling you what you want to hear, and he's the only one telling the truth?' "

Handwriting on the wall

UW volleyball players should get credit for taking a foreign language. Everywhere they go is a white board neatly filled with numbers, graphs and quotes, if not McLaughlin shorthand, written with orange, green and purple pens. One board covers a wall in his office. Another hangs in the players' lounge. Yet another is wheeled out to practice each day.

Everything is charted: Performance, schedules, goals. Every 15 minutes during practice, the coach leads his players back to a board for consultation.

The trick is learning to read this stuff, and most of his Huskies are serious students. It can be daunting to the program newcomer.

"When I first came here, (it was) 'What is this? Where is volleyball a science?' " Tomasevic asked.

"It took a bit of decoding," senior Darla Myhre said.

"I still don't understand it," freshman Jessica Swarbrick conceded.

If there were a movie made about McLaughlin, his character would be played by Matt Damon or Russell Crowe, guys who have portrayed genius before. The coach's handiwork resembles one big algebra problem, winding through layers and layers of information, demonstrating order and purpose.

As the UW coach explains the process, everything can be broken down into percentages, especially the fine line between winning and losing, and his players need to see it. The numbers dictate the lineup, not him.

"You can only blame yourself," said senior Brie Hagerty, a transfer from Ohio State. "Look at the stats. It's no surprise if you're not playing on Friday."

Players record results from drills on the board and know exactly what's coming in practice next because of the board.

"If I make one error, I have to make it up with two good plays; it's like a constant calculator in my head," Tomasevic said.

McLaughlin will tell you there was once nothing better than paddling into the surf off Malibu and zipping back to shore alongside his Santa Monica High buddies, most notably Penn, who was a year older. As a reminder, he keeps a framed black and white photo of himself hanging on his office wall. He's young, upright on his surfboard, on top of the ocean.

As a volleyball coach, he's riding a new wave now. McLaughlin doesn't want to get off any time soon, either.