“We’re taking ourselves on a journey through being more vulnerable as a team and learning how to trust each other better.”
Ben Wallis, the head coach of women’s volleyball at University of Texas El Paso, sits down in this episode of the 35,000 Feet podcast to share insight with us about his experiences. Ben talks about the highlights of the 2019 UTEP volleyball season, shares his most memorable travel adventure, and gives a look into what’s in store for the UTEP volleyball team!
In this episode, we discuss:
The past season highlights for UTEP Volleyball (0:22)
How Ben got into coaching (5:44)
Ben’s most memorable travel adventure (10:01)
One thing no one knows about Ben (12:52)
Ben’s advice to athletes wanting to play in college (15:01)
Ben’s next adventure (17:45)
Coach Ben Wallis’ Recap of His First Year as the Head Coach of UTEP Volleyball
Coach Ben Wallis: I was hired in early January of 2019 so it's been one full calendar year here in El Paso for my staff and I. When we took this program over in January of '19 we knew we were taking over a reclamation project so to speak. It was eye-opening for us and for my staff in a lot of ways because I hired a couple of people from different parts of the country so to be able to come to El Paso and take this program over and try to point them in the right direction, it was definitely a chore. It was a program, it's been near and dear to my heart, but for a lot of years because I'm from New Mexico, from high school and my wife is from El Paso, so she grew up here and went to high school here and then played volleyball at New Mexico State prior to my time at New Mexico State.
My wife and I have some ties to the area and I thought I was going to have my eye on the job. They were struggling mightily and we took the program over in January we decided that we'd set some goals for ourselves, which for the most part, the majority of our goals we set were attained or we were just short of them.
So one of those mini goals was to try to triple our winning total from the previous season. So they went four in 26 I think in 2018 and this year we came just short of our goal of tripling that win total, we ended up going 13 and 15 and lost in the conference tournament in November. That was the first time they'd made the conference tournament in five seasons. So it was a success for them in a lot of way to get back on a winning track and pointing the needle in the right direction. But for me and for my staff, it was frustrating for us knowing that we're used to winning 20 matches a year and in doing things that consistently gets you to conference championship time and NCAA tournament play.
But that's kind of a synopsis really is just, we took over the losing program, we wanted to try to get the right kids in here and turn this culture and this program around and that's what we've been grinding through for the last year.
Shianne: No, that's awesome. It seems like you guys are on the right path. I mean like you said, you almost tripled the wins from the previous year, so that's awesome just to set that foundation where you can keep building on top of it.
Coach Ben Wallis: Yeah. Looking at the schedule that we got when they hired me, it was pretty much almost all done. We had a couple of things we had to fill in. I was hopeful to get to 15 wins. I felt like looking at the teams we have, we played a significant non-conference schedule when it came to some of the teams. We have Pacific and New Mexico State where I came from and we had some... we lost those teams in five, we had some top 100 wins this year, which they hadn't beaten the top 100 program in five or six years. So we had some pretty significant wins for our players. I think really the most important thing for them was that they understood the difference between coming into practice and just being here and sweating and building towards the end of the year for a conference championship. Because they honestly, quite honestly didn't understand what that was like because they weren't going to the postseason. Their season was done in October and they were going to Thanksgiving and spending time with their family and friends and now we're making flights to go to the conference championships.
It's just a different vibe for them. So the season's longer, the grind is harder. So the thing I'm probably most proud of is at the end of the year we were playing our best volleyball and that is exciting for a young team with a young roster.
How Coach Ben Wallis Started Playing Volleyball and How He Became a Volleyball Coach
Coach Ben Wallis: I think every coach that really loves to train and get their players to play at a high level, has a teacher's mind in them. They're part psychologist and part educator. I knew from a young age that I wanted to teach, I didn't really know until I got a little bit further into my high school years and into my college years that I wanted to coach. But I always knew that I wanted to teach and I always had a heart for teaching. And I always had a heart for young people. When my father and my mother, they took us to Europe when I was in middle school because my dad was in the Air Force. And so we got a taste of life outside of the United States at a pretty young age.
Volleyball's a big, big sport for men everywhere outside of the United States. It's one of the second or third most popular sports in many European countries and really everywhere else outside of the United States. The interesting part about that is that it's grown. Men's volleyball's growing in the United States right now for the first time in 20, 30 years. So that's an exciting thing for the sport of men's volleyball.
But I started playing when I was young in Europe and I started to get an excitement for it. When we moved back to the United States in the late 80s, yeah probably late '80s, early '90s, they didn't have men's volleyball. So really all it was just you would get out in the sand and the beach and you play doubles and you would grow your love for the sport that way.
When we moved to Albuquerque my freshman year in high school, there was a really competitive sand volleyball scene. So I just started playing competitively in the sand. It wasn't until I got to college here at New Mexico State that I joined a pretty competitive club team and we traveled around the country playing and eventually the coach who's still a great, great buddy of mine, one of my best friends, Mike Jordan took over in 1997... no, 1998. He was a young buck and had hair then still and he hired me as a player, player manager, student assistant guy. Little by little I just, that's when I started realizing like, I'm good at this and I think I could really make a profession of this.
I finished my degree in education in 2000 and I started coaching locally here at Franklin High School in El Paso. I mean, just one thing after another. It was something, all of a sudden you really start to see the future down the road of this being something that I want to do and that I love doing. So that's where it all started when it came to playing and to teaching then to coaching.
So now when I went back and all those years, the teacher in me really is the part that I think grew the most and having to teach kids and I'm a special ed teacher by trade. That all still helps me in the gym today. I mean, I coach every one of my players differently and I have to wear a lot of hats, you know what I mean, when it comes to getting the most out of these guys.
Coach Ben Wallis’ Favorite Travel Experiences
Coach Ben Wallis: Oh yeah. I mean living in Europe when you're young, you don't really understand the ramifications or the excitement of it. I can remember several trips down the Rhine River and seeing all the castles and stuff in Europe and all the places we got to go. Going to Neuschwanstein and seeing what they modeled the Disney castle after and going to the Netherlands and seeing all the cool things and the windmills and all the history. That's what actually inspired me to be a history teacher. When I first started teaching in 2000 I started as a history teacher and then I moved into special ed a couple of years after that. But all those experiences give you a really unique perspective on life some years later. Then when you're young, you don't really understand how cool that is to see it. But when I coached at UNM, the University of New Mexico with Jeff in 2011 we took abroad trip. We took a summer trip overseas and we went back to Rome and to Germany and to Croatia and to Slovenia and some places over there that I got to see when I was younger.
So to see them again as an adult and coaching your volleyball team against some of those teams was a really unique perspective. So I really got to soak that up again, going back and it was, once again full circle coming back full circle again. You get to see it as an adult and you really appreciate it a lot more.
Something Unique About Coach Ben Wallis
Coach Ben Wallis: Yeah, it's interesting you asked that question because today I'm meeting with my team at 12:30 and we're going to start going through a leadership training off the book, the Five Dysfunctions of a Team. One of the first activities you have to do with your team is you have to ask that question, that very same question, which is, what's something in your younger years, in your youth, so it could be like from your baby days all the way up to high school." What's something that most people don't know about you?" So I've already got my-
Shianne: You're already prepared.
Coach Ben Wallis: Yeah, I'm already prepared. So you didn't actually put me on the spot because I'm ready to roll up my team today on that. But most people they don't know about me is when I was in high school and even into college, I was a music major. I was the drum major of our marching band. I played sports and did music. I went to college at New Mexico State to become a musician and I played trumpet and I was in the marching band in New Mexico State. So I did sports and did band. So most people are pretty shocked when I tell them that I was a drum major and I was in the band. So I have some funny awkward and embarrassing pictures of that, when you're in high school. So I'll be able to connect with my players, showing them my vulnerable moments too. So most people don't know that about me.
Coach Ben Wallis’ Advice to Athletes Wanting to Play in College
Coach Ben Wallis: These days there's so many good athletes in our country that sometimes the sport of volleyball is just now get out there and play type of sport. It didn't always used to be that way. I think that we're finding more and more kids, sorry, young women that we recruit, they get here that are very athletic but don't think the game very much. They just get out there and they just hit the volleyball or they serve it and they're not knowing really why. So my advice to many of our young players that we're recruiting and that we've committed is to get on and watch volleyball more. This day and age there's so much volleyball to be seen on YouTube and on all the social media channels. But they need to think the game more, they need to understand why things happen, why we do things at a high level instead of just going out and playing.
You need to be able to understand the X's and O's and that's where most of the young players that come into our program, it takes them a long time to understand that there are several choices made in the midst of five seconds of a rally that they don't even think about before they got here. So I would encourage most of those that want to play at a high level in division one volleyball to ask for more. Be a student of the game and ask for more homework and understand why you want to do things, why you want to hit things here or why you want to block this area of the court. That really will help their development before they get to us.
What’s Next for UTEP Volleyball and Coach Ben Wallis
Coach Ben Wallis: We're really in the grind right now as you well know, being a former volleyball player, we're in the grind of changing our weaknesses and our faults. So our players got to campus, two, let's see, three weeks ago and they're in what we call the eight hour period where they're get four hours of instruction by us and they get four hours of strength and conditioning and weights and agility stuff. So this is a tough time for them because they're having to change their bodies and their skill. Then once March rolls around, we get into the 20 hour period where they get to get back into team practice and we get to go compete against some teams and see where we're at. So right now we're already, like I said, today at 12:30 we're meeting and we're on the trip towards changing not only our bodies and our skill, but also our chemistry and our culture here.
We as a team sat down at the end of the year and really talked openly and very vulnerably about how if we had better team chemistry and we understood each other more, we were more trusting of each other, that we would have probably won for four more matches in the fall. It doesn't sound like a lot of matches, but 13 matches versus 17 matches when you look at your schedule is a big, huge deal for a losing program. So our goal this year is to win 20 matches. I think based on the players we have here with skill and with athleticism, we can do that. But we're really working hard right now. We're taking ourselves on a journey through being more vulnerable as a team and learning how to trust each other better. Learning how to understand that it's okay to challenge each other and not to get upset about it.
That's a long process for anybody, but especially 19 to 22 year old females. So we're trying to learn how to do that. We're actually going to go on this journey together and we're going to keep moving through this in the fall and we got to start it now though. I mean it's just like passing, serving, you want to be better at passing, serving in the fall, you've got to start doing it now and so that's the journey that my program and my team and my staff are on and we're looking forward to figuring out what the strengths and weaknesses of that are.
Follow UTEP Volleyball
Podcast made in partnership with Acanela Expeditions
Theme Song - I’ll Just Be Me by Gravity Castle