Gilad Doron, the head coach of women’s volleyball at Dartmouth University sits down with us in this episode of the 35,000 Feet podcast and gives us insight into his journey as a volleyball coach. During our interview, Gilad shares his journey from a professional volleyball player to a coach, how the 2019 Dartmouth Women’s Volleyball season went, and some of his favorite travel experiences he’s encountered through volleyball!

In this episode, we discuss:

• How this past season went for Dartmouth Volleyball (0:20)

• How Coach Doron got into coaching (4:01)

• Gilad’s advice to athletes wanting to play in college (7:15)

• Gilad’s favorite travel experience (9:59)

• One thing that no one knows about Gilad (14:35)

• Gilad’s next adventure (15:32)

Recap of Dartmouth Women’s Volleyball 2019 Season

Coach Doron: It was a lot of up and down season. The biggest challenge coming from where I was before at the University of San Francisco or Villanova or even Temple as an assistant before, when it's a scholarship school, when the goals are different, is to make a change and build a culture, but you have to use your current players since it's so hard to get in here. How do you do that and how do you influence while you are using players who you might not recruit, who might not choose you but now you're working with them? I think that was the biggest challenge. We're in year four but practically in the way volleyball goes as about to class and a half that was here prior to me getting here. Still going to be seniors next year. So this transition is taking time.

I really respect and appreciate the players who bought into who I am and what I'm trying to teach. This season we thought we will have a little more success, but two of our upper-classmen actually got injured in the preseason and two both missed the entire season. So we were very, very young with a freshman setter with a freshman right side. And so between all the injuries that happened, I was really happy that the team stayed the course and we finished pretty strong this season with wins over Cornell and Columbia and fifth place in the conference. But we all felt that this can spark a much better future for us.

Coach Doron’s Volleyball Journey As A Player & Coach

Coach Doron: When I was 14-15 I just started high school, seventh grade in my town where I grew up in Israel, I really wanted to play basketball, but the school is very, very small. So we have men's and women's volleyball and track. So we didn't have all the sports like you normally have in the United States. Our school predominantly there were many of the pioneers that I grew up or from the Eastern European Block or survivor of the Holocaust or maybe the Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine. So volleyball was in their blood. So they start in volleyball teams and the volleyball school. So I didn't necessarily want to play much, but the school was so small, they said we need one more player so we can have a team.

So I started playing with my high school team and after one year I was invited to the Junior National Team. And from there things kind of start going in a different direction. Obviously. I love the competition, I love the team aspect of it. I love the training and I was very fortunate that I was able to go from my small place to the Junior National Team, then the National Team and then play professionally.

That's how I met my wife. She grew up in the United States and she went to play overseas after college in Israel and that's how we met. And a long time ago when we decided to get married, she also wanted to do her masters. So we came to the US I finished playing my career and then I started as an assistant at Temple University. Again, I wasn't sure this is what I wanted to do.

I was a Finance Risk Management major with some engineering out of it. And after I graduated and I was an assistant for four years there and we won three eight-ten championships. I worked at Cigna Group Insurance and then I started coaching club because I still felt connected to the sport and then, the Villanova job was open and it was an opportunity for me to go back.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to coach in college, but my friend convinced me to interview... was able to help Villanova have the biggest turnaround at the time in Villanova history. And then three years later ended up in the University of San Francisco for nine years and all-time coach there, went to the NCAA Tournament was ranked as high as 22 in the country. But after nine years there I was looking for something different. And coming here, working with really bright student-athletes, having the balance of what it means to be a student-athlete as well as family was really a good fit for me. And I'm just focusing on trying to make Dartmouth volleyball as good as it can be.

Coach Doron’s Advice to Athletes Wanting to Play in College

Shianne: It sounds like you had an amazing journey to get to where you are now and from growing up to playing at a young age to the National Team. That's awesome. I loved hearing that. If you were to give anybody... a college player or somebody who wanted to play in college, what would your advice be for them?

Coach Doron: I would say first and foremost, it's really hard to know what you want to be five-six-ten years from now. I would not imagine me being a coach my age, 30 some years ago. Is to one, find a school that you see yourself there even if you're not going to play the sport. The environment, the location, the size, and then obviously whether you connect with the head coach and maybe the younger players on the team. And I'll explain a lot of times that you see a senior, she's an all American and she's awesome, but if you're in 11th grade, you're not playing with her. If you really connected with, and I have it before, someone go to a school they really loved the assistant coach, he was the recruiting coordinator but they got a new job or quit coaching altogether.

So make the decision based on real things, your location, the size, the atmosphere of the school. Are you high academic or you... You want a certain vibe, those are really important decision, and I know in our sports, a lot of times you pressure kids very young. Say "Come and play for me. I'll give you a full ride." And now you see the transfer portal just exploding because you don't know at 16 what do you want to do and if you make a decision just based on the name, you'd come down there and you realize it's very different than what you expect. So really do as well, research as possible you can to find the right fit for you. And knowing that even if it's not necessarily what you expected, you'll have to work really hard.

A lot of people compare being a student-athlete to a job. I always said it's not a job if you are passionate about what you do. That's another thing. For me, every day I'm in the gym or in an office, people ask me, how come I have so much energy? It's because I love what I do. And if you love what you do, just like you do this podcast, it's not work. It's really a joy. So how again... if someone just plays because their parents drive them to the tournament or play because their friends asked them, at the end of the day you've got to really figure out if you love the sport and if you do, you're going to be successful almost anywhere you're going to be.

Coach Doron’s Travel Experiences as a Member of the Israeli University Team and as a Volleyball Coach

Shianne: Can you kind of expound a little bit more on your favorite travel experiences? I'm sure you have really cool experiences. So I'd love to hear them. Whether it was as a coach, as a player or just in your personal life.

Coach Doron: Yeah. Awesome. My favorite trip as a player... I have a couple, one of the best memories I have is in 95 we were part of the Israeli University team that went to Japan for the World University Games representing Israel and we ended up finished fourth in the world. We had a month-long trip. The funny story about that, our coach said "We don't have a center on the team so we're not going to send a team." And we always dreamed to go to Japan. So we made a bet that if I will set and we will beat the first team and he cannot say he can't send us. And I practiced for two months or some just to set, because I was an outside hitter. And we ended up in the practice beating the players who will not make it to Japan and we went to Japan and finished fourth in the world we beat USA, we beat Canada, Poland, Sweden and really have a remarkable tournament when we not only have an amazing cultural experience, we played in front of 17-18,000 people, every gym we went and literally the best results we ever had as a nation.

And the Japanese organized just like they will do for this Tokyo Olympics, an amazing job of organizing. I remember being in the Olympic village or the World University game village and at the time the US men's basketball team was Ray Allen and Allen Iverson and some of those guys later you go up and you watch some of the Olympians because it's basically the World University Game is an Olympic sport under 26. So it was an amazing experience for us. I have another trip when we as a team was when I was about 20 we came to play on the West coast against college teams and it was 1990 and I was very young and we played Pepperdine, USC, San Diego State at the time had a team, Santa Barbara, UCLA and North region.

We went 8-0, had an amazing trip. And those were special because, for the most part, we competed in a European region. So a lot of our trips will be more in Europe and focusing strictly on playing. And this one, we had a chance to also travel and see different things.

Later as a coach, when I was at the University of San Francisco, I had a chance to take the team to an international trip to Europe. We went to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, and finished in Venice. That was an amazing experience for the team. We took a nighttime train, which was an experience by itself.

And then later I did a missionary trip with the University of San Francisco when I worked really closely with one of my friends there and we took a group of students to Peru and worked with different unprivileged youth in the mountains.

That was a really, really amazing experience to see how much joy we can bring for kids that basically don't have anything and live between. The agreement was that when we go play with them at the playground, the drug dealers stay out for two hours, but we could not have cameras. We couldn't have anything. For some of our students from the United States, I have two players that joined that trip. It was a real eye-opening to see how fortunate we are. And at the tail end of it, my wife and my son came and we did Machu Picchu, which I recommended it to anyone, who can ever be as high and as close to God as we stayed to go there because... amazing view and we were very fortunate. We did the Sacred Valley. And so that's also one of my favorite trips.

Something Unique About Coach Doron

Shianne: Also, I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit. So what is one thing that no one knows about you that you can share with us?

Coach Doron: That's a tough one. When I was about one and a half I had an accident. So my left hand, I have out of my finger and half of the little chops. So every time the set of argues when they can't do something, I can set when I miss half a finger. So it happens. That's a story I can share. Obviously I can't show it to you now here, but it shows that you don't have to be perfect and there are still hurdles in life and making the most of what you have is just an opportunity that you should take and, I always tell the kids life is really short and you never know, so might as well do the most out of it.

What’s Next for Coach Doron and Dartmouth Women’s Volleyball

Coach Doron: My next adventure, I hope I can lead this team to do something that's never been done before. Dartmouth is the youngest varsity volleyball program in the Ivy and just to make sure that we get into that top four and being a contender in the next three to four years will be an amazing accomplishment. As a player, I got a chance to play for championship teams and coached in teams or made the NCA, whether it's at Temple or in San Francisco and since so many seen coach Olympians and it's been an amazing journey, but to take on an organization that never experienced it and try to teach it and try to see how the players embrace that and wants to take on that challenge, that's probably will be my biggest challenge.

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Podcast made in partnership with Acanela Expeditions

Theme Song - I’ll Just Be Me by Gravity Castle