“You get to experience different culture, different food, and different styles of volleyball and different things that are really cool and opportunities that not everybody has.”
Aaron Smith, the head coach of women’s volleyball at University of Virginia, 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, Aaron tells us about his experience playing professional volleyball in Spain, the high and lows of UVA’s 2019 season, and what’s in store for next year!
In this episode, we discuss:
Coach Aaron Smith’s background
Highs and lows of UVA’s last season
Coach Smith’s most memorable travel experience
A lesser-known fact about Coach Smith
Coach Smith’s Advice to Athletes
Next season for UVA
About Coach Aaron Smith
Courtney: I'm sitting down with Coach Aaron Smith from the University of Virginia, and we're excited to have him. And Coach Smith, if you just want to tell us a little bit about yourself?
Aaron: Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me, Courtney. I'm excited to speak with you in your podcast. I'm the head coach at the University of Virginia for the volleyball program. I've been here as the head coach for three years and was an assistant and associate head coach for the five years prior to that. I grew up in Virginia, I'm a Virginia resident, native, and I'm really excited to be at UVA and to kind of live out my dream. At 35 years old, taking over the program at what was it, 32, 33. I didn't necessarily expect to be here this early in my career, but I targeted UVA as a school I wanted to be at when I got into coaching at the age of 23. And to have the opportunity to be here is very exciting. It's a great school and academic and athletic reputation is pretty remarkable.
So I'm living my dream right now. And a little bit of family background, I've got a lovely wife, Natalie Smith, and two kids, a four and a two year old, Lucy and Calvin. Just turned four and two in January. I'm a family guy, so love talking about them. So feel free to unload some questions about them if you'd like.
Courtney: That's awesome. Have any of them sparked any interest in volleyball this young?
Aaron: They are very interested. They call every sport volleyball.
Courtney: There you go.
Aaron: We go to the basketball games and they say, "Volleyball?" That's my two year old. My four year old, we'll pepper with some balloons in the house and I'll spike some balls at her. But yeah, they definitely are picking up sports. Volleyball is just one of them right now, but we have a good time around the house.
Coach Aaron Smith’s Background in Volleyball
Courtney: It looks like you've played professional volleyball in Spain. What's some of your volleyball background there? That's awesome.
Aaron: Yeah. So I got into volleyball ninth grade. Going way back to how I got into it, I only got into it because the baseball coach was the volleyball coach and I wanted to make the baseball team. And made the volleyball team that Fall, made the baseball team that Spring. And then going into my second year of high school, I made the volleyball team and realized at that point, how much I loved it and got pretty good at it. Things started clicking, this 6'4" lanky guy started to get a little coordination. And so I just fell in love with it and dropped basketball, baseball, soccer at that point and just really started playing volleyball. So I went on to play in college, played at Penn State. Had a great experience there and played in a couple semifinals and a couple of final fours and the national championship game.
And then post-college, decided... I got into the workforce and worked for about three months and realized what I was doing isn't what I wanted to do. And so that's kind of when I decided to go overseas and play pro. I missed the sport a lot, at that point I wasn't really playing volleyball much and decided I wanted it back in my life. Had an opportunity to go play in Spain, played in Tarragona, which is on the East coast of the country, had a great experience there. I played for one season and decided I wanted to come home and marry my girlfriend. And at that point, that's when I kind of decided I wanted to get into coaching and again, keep volleyball in my life. And so been coaching ever since. Couple years volunteering and assistant coach, and now here I am at UVA.
Highs and Lows of the University of Virginia’s Volleyball 2019 Season
Courtney: Do you want to just tell us about some highs and lows of the last season that you've had?
Aaron: Sure. Yeah. So I took the program over three years ago and certainly had some highs and lows throughout those three years. Last year specifically, was kind of the first year of my three years that I was really... I mean, each year was more exciting than the last, but last year I really felt like, man, we're going to take a big jump. We've really developed some of these younger players in our program. We've got good senior leadership, we've got good team chemistry. We've kind of finally got a balanced roster. We've got a little depth and we did make some good progress. We won four or five matches more than the year prior so we were excited about that.
Some of the lows that contributed to not quite meeting those goals of ours were a couple injuries. I had my first two ACL injuries as a coach in 12 years, each in the same year. Two starters, one was a rising second year who tore her ACL in the first weekend of our play and had opened up the year in a three or four set match with nearly 20 kills and passing six rotations. The next morning she came out and played great and then in the evening, day two of our season, had a fluke injury and turned the wrong way and was out for the year. So she's recovering great.
Courtney: Oh, that's hard.
Aaron Smith: Yeah. Recovering great and expecting to have a full return. But that was a little bit of a low last year. Was it three or four weeks later? First, second weekend of ACC play, our starting libero had a very similar injury. Ended up tearing her ACL and again, on just kind of a play, she planted and turned the other way and it went out on her. So we've definitely dealt with some adversity throughout the year. But some positives that came from it was that some younger players really got an opportunity to step up and gain some experience in their careers that I think certainly helped them throughout last year and they're going to help us next year and years down the road.
So we grew from it, we learned from it, it was cool to see our players support those that dealt with injuries, how close we were. And how it was an emotional time, seeing two on court leaders go down. And one of them particular, to a fourth year who ended her career with that being her last match. And so yeah, it was emotional, but also pretty cool to just see how tight our group is and seeing the support, helping them rehab and helping them get back to living their daily lives and return as athletes.
Courtney: Sounds like positive things did come out of that. And some of your younger players obviously got to gain some experience and it sounds like your team will be stronger next year for it.
Aaron: Yes. No question.
Coach Aaron Smith’s Most Memorable Travel Experience
Courtney: We are a travel company, so what would you say your most memorable travel experience has been in your life?
Aaron: Travel experiences. Living in Tarragona, that's a little bit unique from besides traveling in the US. But living in Tarragona, I was about an hour from Barcelona and that was just one of the coolest cities I've ever been to. All the history there and the buildings and the food, it's really cool. Events, I was able to go to a futbol game, a soccer, futbol game, and just really cool experience there. Getting to travel throughout Spain, going to the Canary Islands to play matches and Tenerife, I remember that being pretty cool. And walking out on the beach and there's this black sand and it's just beautiful scenery. And again, food. I love food, so a really, really cool opportunity there and that time of my life.
Traveling in this job, I'm on the road quite frequently, whether it's finding new players and recruiting throughout some of the major cities in the US. Or traveling throughout the ACC, playing our conference matches up and down the East coast and a little bit into the Midwest. You get to experience different culture and different food and different styles of volleyball and different things that are really, really cool and opportunities that not everybody has. So I'm appreciative of it. And oftentimes the family is able to go with or experience those opportunities with me. So it's, yeah we've-
Courtney: That's awesome. Yeah it's cool that your family also gets to join in on that experience with you. It's cool you have a job that they can get to see some new things as well with that.
Aaron: Yeah, definitely.
A Lesser-Known Fact About Coach Aaron Smith
Courtney: What's one thing that no one knows about you that you can share?
Aaron: That's an interesting... I've kind of stressed family. I know this isn't super interesting, I'll probably think of something else while I'm sharing this, but I'm one of five kids. All my siblings are in Virginia living and that's not always the norm.
Courtney: Yeah.
Aaron: As people get jobs and grow up, they often go their own direction. But I'm pretty fortunate to be able to do that.
Coach Aaron Smith’s Advice to Athletes
Courtney: Yeah. No, that's a great one, that your family is just all together and that you've been able to still have everyone so close. That's awesome. If you're an athlete wanting to play for a team in university, what would your advice be to that athlete?
Aaron: My advice would be a couple things. I think one, just understand the commitment that it takes to play at the division one level. I get a ton of emails, calls, daily, and I fill a roster of 16 to 18 young women and we're looking for the best. So there is a big commitment in terms of getting yourself to that level of play and getting yourself to that level of commitment to be one of the top players in the country and to have the background to be able to handle not only the athletic side, but the academic side, which is very important. At any school you target or whatever school targets you, taking care of your grades first and foremost, and then really just sacrificing what's not important.
And I think that there's a lot of different factors in that, obviously your training and your academics kind of are one A and one B. But being willing to sacrifice that social outing with your friends. And I do think that that's important to make room and make time for friends and certainly for family, but I think that prioritizing what really is important, staying in and getting the paper done instead of going out. Or hitting the gym instead of going to the mall. Just prioritizing your time is I think really good advice.
Courtney: And just being able to be responsible with that and make sure that you are keeping your level of play up as well as your academics. That's good advice. Do you have any other last minute thoughts that you wanted to share?
Aaron: The only other thing maybe I would is just let you know that whenever you're on the East coast or in Virginia, come check out UVA volleyball. We play in a pretty cool arena, pretty cool gym. It's really special to us. There's a lot of history here at Virginia. Yeah, it's cool. Cool facility, really cool athletic department. Virginia is one of the top athletic and top academic institutions in the country, consistently in the top 10 of the Director's Cup. And that's as an athletic department as a whole, but also in the top three of public schools from an academic perspective. So it's a pretty unique combination of athletics and academics. So like I said, I'm very fortunate to be at this university and to have a dream job and working here and helping be a mentor to these young women.
Courtney: Yeah, sounds like a great school. If we're in Virginia, we'll definitely come and check out a game and meet you in person. That would be awesome.
What’s Next for the University of Virginia’s Volleyball Team
Courtney: What's next up on your plate? What are you most excited about, about this next season I guess?
Aaron: Similar excitement to what I expressed a little bit earlier, with this being the year I felt like man, we can take another step. Been in the gym with this group since middle of January, training and just preparing for Fall. I'm very excited about what I think that this team can do and as we were still in the very early years of kind of establishing our culture and kind of our identity, I know that we're ready to take another jump in our standings and just the way that our university and our program's perceived. So I'm excited about that.
Courtney: Yeah. That's lots of exciting things coming up and we're excited for this upcoming season that you have next year. We're excited to watch you guys play and see all the success that you guys will have this next season.
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Podcast made in partnership with Acanela Expeditions
Theme Song - I’ll Just Be Me by Gravity Castle