“The main thing to realize, especially for someone of my generation, was that going to UCLA and playing for Al meant that you were guaran- teed to win a champion- ship, and you knew you were in the best gym in the country.”
Tim Kelly middle blocker on the 1993 championship team
FAMILIAR POSE: Scates’ 1984 team won UCLA’s fourth straight NCAA championship.
Bill Neville. Scates would go on to win eight more titles, and his teams have appeared in a staggering 25 of the 41 national title matches since the NCAA fi rst sponsored a volleyball championship in 1970. It’s no wonder that he begins each season expecting to win the title and that his players come to UCLA with the same expectation.
“The main thing to realize, especially for someone of my generation, was that going to UCLA and playing for Al meant that you were guaranteed to win a championship, and you knew you were in the best gym in the country,” said Tim Kelly, a 6-10 middle blocker on the ’93 title team. “If he wanted you, you were set … you were wrapped up in a tradition from the moment you set foot in the gym. And if you wanted to move forward to the (U.S. Men’s National Volleyball Team) or pro ranks overseas, the path was lit for you by being part of the Bruin machine.”
Consummate competitor G
reg Giovanazzi, who tragically passed away in March, glanced at the wall at his Maryland home months before his death with a deep smile on his face, one that extended to his eyes and seemed to fl ow to his heart. Hanging in a shadowbox is a bronze medal from his days assisting the U.S. Women’s Olympic Volleyball Team. Nearby is a copy of John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success, and next to it is Giovanazzi’s prized treasure, a letter that reads: “To Gio: The Offi cial UCLA Volleyball Historian.” It is signed by Al Scates. Reminiscing about his days at UCLA brings out an even bigger smile from Giovanazzi, who played for Scates, served as his assistant coach,
went on to be Terry Liskevych’s top assistant when the U.S. Women’s National Team won the bronze medal at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona and was then the head coach at University of Michigan from 1992 to 1998. Gio was one of many Bruins whom Scates tapped to help him on the bench. “A big key to devel- oping a championship team is to hire outstand- ing assistant coaches who are willing to work hard,” Scates says. “Al was the con- summate competitor,” said Giovanazzi, who goes on to describe the tennis battles that he and Scates had while he was helping him run 10 volleyball camps in seven states annually beginning in the late 1970s. On breaks, the two coaches would slip away to play a set or two. One day in Kansas at the last camp of the summer, Scates issued a challenge: The summer tennis championship was on the line. This, despite the fact that Gio had won the four matches they’d already played. Scates said he’d fi nd a court while Gio and the other coaches wrapped up the evening session.
1970 1971 1972 1974 1975 1976 1979 1981 1982 1983
“Al comes into the gym with a huge grin and tells me that he found a court for us to
play on,” Giovanazzi said. As it turns out, the court was a wreck — no lights, cracks in the pavement, a net made of chains, mosquitoes everywhere. “It was the worst court in town,” Giovanazzi said. “He had psyched me out.” And Scates went on to beat him soundly, earning summer bragging rights.
The power of preparation UCLA
NCAA Men’s Volleyball titles
1984 1987 1989 1993 1995 1996 1998 2000 2006
hat many people don’t understand is that the extraordinary achievements of Scates’ teams – the Bruin Mys- tique, as it is sometimes called – are the results of hundreds and hundreds of hours of hard work and a carefully designed prac- tice environment that produces precision, execution and, most of all, fi erce competition. “Al simply had the abil- ity to get all the best players together, surround them with all these wonderful coaches and former players from the greatest program in collegiate history, and then implement a system that allowed guys to battle it out,” Kelly says. “The competi- tion in the gym at practice every day made matches against other teams during the season pretty easy, in most cases.”
W
Many describe Scates as supremely confi dent. But, by all accounts, he is not a tyranni-
cal dictator nor a drill sergeant. Rather, his players insist he is a disciplined taskmaster who doesn’t say much during practice – apart
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