David Hunt, the head coach of men’s volleyball at Pepperdine University, sits down with us in this episode of the 35,000 feet podcast going over the highs and lows of his team’s past season. He talks about his journey from player to coach, his most memorable travel experiences, and shares great advice for future college athletes!

In this episode, we discuss:

• How this past season went for Pepperdine Volleyball team (0:19)

• How Coach Hunt got into coaching (3:22)

• David’s favorite travel experience (9:26)

• David’s advice to athletes wanting to play in college (14:27)

• One thing that no one knows about David (18:12)

• David’s next adventure (19:18)

Peaks and Dives for Pepperdine Volleyball Team’s Past Season

Morgan: Hi, guys. Welcome back. It's Morgan. Today, I'm sitting down with David, who's the Pepperdine men's volleyball coach. Thanks so much for joining us.

David: Yeah. Thanks, Morgan. Thanks for having me.

Morgan: Yeah. We're excited to have you and we're excited to get to know you more. So one of the questions I wanted to ask you about is tell us about the highs and lows of your current season.

David: Yeah. We didn't expect the current season to come to an end two weeks ago. That's for sure. We thought we would still be playing volleyball and we thought we'd be ramping up to get into some real high level volleyball here in a few weeks. So the low is probably finding out or having to tell our team that the spring championships have been canceled. But there's always a positive that comes from every trial and tribulation that we have to go through. So the positive is all our athletes get another year back if they want to choose to use that.

Morgan: Oh.

David: And the details will be ironed out by the NCA and the next few weeks. But so there's some light at the end of the tunnel in terms of not too often in life do you get a chance to redo things. But we might have a chance to redo some things here pretty soon. So that might be the high and the low.

Morgan: Yeah.

David: I'll let you know. But yeah, the high, I guess, for us, up to this point, was just we had a lot of turnover. I think we graduated all of our starters except for one.

Morgan: Oh, wow.

David: So just getting into the gym every day with this young group of guys and seeing how well they developed and the learning that took place, that curve is pretty steep. But it was a fun process to be a part of. So I think every day, just getting into the gym with these guys and learning and teaching was a lot of fun. So highs and lows, I don't know if the highs ... The highs were daily, and just, I think, even though it came to an abrupt halt, I think there's a lot of positives that will come out of it in the years to come.

Morgan: Oh, I love that. And that's awesome that you've said that the athletes get a year back, too

David: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The NCAA ... It's outside of everybody's control, and I think that's the one positive that we took away. A year ago, I don't know how many people know, but over a year ago, Malibu ... a large fire came through Malibu and we were displaced for about 20 days. And so we actually had had some experience dealing with this online learning and being away from each other and the unknown, except, at that point, it just Pepperdine. It wasn't any other university. So there's a little bit of consolation in knowing that everybody's going through this.

And the NCA responded super quickly with letting everybody know that the spring athletes would get a year back. And so our guys knew the very next day that that would be an option. They don't know the intricate details of all of it, but just knowing that the NCA was all over it just gave them some peace of mind. So it was cool.

Morgan: Oh, that's awesome. I'm glad that they still get that opportunity. And it's cool that it's still working even with online and things like that. So I love that.

David: Yeah. And these guys are so tech savvy. For somebody that's a little bit older, it might be a challenge. But these guys, I think it's been pretty seamless.

Morgan: Yes, exactly. It's true. Generations.

David: Yeah.

David Hunt’s Journey to Becoming A Coach

Morgan: How did you get to be a coach there at Pepperdine? What's your story?

David: Yeah. Just by chance. I started when I was 20, 21 years old as a graduate manager or an undergraduate manager actually, but I wasn't an undergrad student at Pepperdine. I was an undergrad student at UCLA. And I originally started out at junior college and I had played there, and I transferred to UCLA and I wasn't doing anything volleyball related, looking to make some extra money. So I started coaching. And I figured if I was going to coach, I might as well figure out what the heck I was doing. So I took a coaching clinic, and the coaching clinic was actually hosted at Pepperdine.

Morgan: Oh.

David: So I happened to cross paths with Marv, who is the current head coach and who was the head coach before me for about 40 years. And parallel to that, the coach that had coached me at Pierce College was also the assistant at Pepperdine at the time. So there was a nice parallel there.

So I got to know Marv and became familiar with the university, the program. My last year at UCLA, Marvin asked me if I wanted to come and check out practice and see the guys train. So I came up and watched. And he kept inviting me back and then ultimately offered me an undergrad position, manager position-

Morgan: Oh, awesome.

David: ... at that time. Yeah. At that time, I didn't know what was going to come of it. I definitely never thought I was going to be the next head coach at Pepperdine 11 years later, 12 years later. But it was an opportunity to be around somebody that was having a positive impact on people's lives and to combine a passion, which was volleyball. And I knew I wanted to go into some sort of coaching. In college, I was originally thinking of being a strength and conditioning coach. I never thought that I would coach a sport.

But I did have a passion for watching people get better, learning, teaching. I didn't know in what capacity that would be. And then I got to see one of the best in coaching ever do it for 11 years. So I think being around somebody that's good at anything they do is fascinating, let alone something that you're also interested in doing.

Morgan: It's true. Well, and that's so cool. I love hearing how coaches get to where they're at. So I do have a question for you. What have you learned most since being a coach, I guess?

David: Oh, yeah. That's tough, because I don't know if I can separate the two.

Morgan: Yeah.

David: When you're a young person, you think you know it all. And then as you get older, you realize you didn't know anything, right?

Morgan: Yeah.

David: And so when I was 20 and 21, I didn't know what the heck I was doing. And that was probably the best thing to happen to me. Here I am, sitting with one of the best volleyball coaches in the world, and it was like the movie The Karate Kid. I didn't ... Wax on, wax off. And I just thought we were doing some stupid drill or whatever it was. And here, I got to sit with Marv and watch a video and hear what he saw and what he looked at. And I guess the positive was I wasn't breaking a habit that I had. It wasn't like I was coming in to this realm and bringing in my thoughts and how I thought things should be done. I was this blank slate of just, "Hey, teach me," or, "I'm open to learning whatever you have to share."

Morgan: Yeah.

David: So we would sit there and I would run video for him, and he'd tell me to pause or play or rewind or whatever it was. And then it was, "Hey, well, here's what we're watching here. Do you know why we're watching this?" And I would just say, "No." "Well, here's why we're watching this."

So slowly, over time, I think I did that for two years. And over time, I just picked up what he was watching. I don't even think it's fair to say that I now watch what he was watching because he still sees things that I would love to be able to see. It would take me multiple times to watch video to be able to see some of the stuff that he sees. But just getting some insight into one of the world's best.

Morgan: Wow. Oh, no, that is so cool. And one thing that you pointed out, it's kind of like ... how it's a process and you keep learning and keep growing. And so I love that.

David: Yeah. And you know what? To backtrack a little bit, I think ... You were saying what I learned, and basically, I can just say I learned everything. But what always impressed me was here I was, sitting next to one of the best to ever coach, and we would be discussing how to teach something. And he had no problem picking up the phone and calling anybody and asking them how they taught whatever skill it was that we were discussing. And I was thinking, "Here's one of the best to ever do it, and he is humble enough and bold enough to call somebody that he's never really talked to and ask them how they teach this skill in their gym." And I'm thinking, "Well, most people should be calling you. Why are you calling somebody else?"

But I think just that desire to learn and to grow became infectious for coaches around him, people in the program, people that just interacted with him. And so that's probably rubbed off on me. So I'm finding myself in this downtime writing random coaches that are probably wondering why the heck I'm writing them, but I want to know why they teach their team or what they teach to their team, because their teams were pretty good at things. And every coach that I've reached out to has been super responsive. So that's been fun.

Morgan: Oh, that's awesome. Well, that just shows that you have a desire to learn and grow and improve and help your team, which is a great quality to have as a coach. So I respect that.

David: Yeah. You know what? And I think we owe it to our players, right? The only promise that we can make is that we're going to try our hardest to coach them up, teach them up. And I don't know everything. I definitely don't know everything. And we're not undefeated in the last few years, so there's some room to grow for sure.

Morgan: Yeah. Well, and I love that. That motivation, that effort, that rubs off on players. Players and coaches, they rely on each other. And so that's awesome. I'm excited to keep watching your team and see where you go.

David: Yeah. Hopefully, we keep trending in the right direction.

David Hunt’s Top Expeditions

Morgan: You will. Well, perfect. Well, I guess onto the next question. What's been one of your most memorable travel experiences?

David: Yeah. There's been a lot of them. I've been lucky enough to work with different international programs the last 11 years now, 12 years now, 13.

Morgan: Wow.

David: I've lost count. But I think you'd have to say going to Olympic games was a highlight. But it wasn't a highlight because it was the Olympics. It was you set this goal. We went in 2016. So that had been my goal for eight years. And that had been when I first started coaching. That was what I wanted to do. I saw Mark who had been to eight Olympic games, I think. So naturally, that was the path I wanted to follow.

Morgan: Yeah.

David: But when you set goals, part of the issue with setting goals is when you finally reach your goal, what do you do? And here we are, the night of opening ceremonies, and we're watching all the athletes that are in and I'm just thinking, "Is this all really it was cracked up to be?"

And when I say that it's, you're sitting there and you gave up a lot of birthdays, a lot of family time, a lot of personal time. There's been a lot of sacrifices to get to that point. And the athletes sacrifice much more than the coaches, I think. But as a coach, there's just a lot of time in that journey that you've put in. And then you start to think, "Was it all worth it?"

And don't get me wrong. I would do it all again, and I'm not saying that it wasn't. But you start to reevaluate your priorities and you start to look at, "All right. The Olympic games were over. We got a bronze medal," and volleyball life still continued. We still had to fly back home and it's not like the world ended. So then there was no plan or goal after that.

So I had to reevaluate what I was doing, not in terms of coaching, but just what was I going to put my mind to? And then I think that translates also to what we're telling our athletes. So we're a lot about the process and focusing on daily improvements. So then, as a coach, how can I implement that in my own life? And what kind of coach do I want to be? Do I want to be transactional? Do I want to be transformational? If I want to be a transformational coach, which is a decision that I've made, then how do I go about that on a daily basis?

And if I focus on that on a daily basis, I find that the reward is much more something that I feel every day. I go home and I feel like, man, I got my money's worth and it leaves me with a good feeling. And when you're coaching in college, you have an opportunity to be a transformational coach on a pretty deep level in lots of different areas much more often, I find.

Morgan: Yeah. Well, I love how you set goals and you put your mind to it and you accomplish that because your team's going to follow that. And you guys are going to keep being successful because of that hard work and that desire to have goals and accomplish them.

David: We've done away with the goal setting so much. And it's now ... it's just about a standard for living. And it's-

Morgan: Yeah.

David: With our athletes, it's much more of, "Here's our personal philosophy. And how do we live to it every day?" And I think that is much more impactful.

And yeah, there will be some things that we're striving to meet along the way. But I think if our process is rock solid, then we'll accomplish all the goals. But if a goal is to win conference, which I hear a lot of athletes when they first get to our gym, "Hey, I want to win conference. I want to be an All American," okay, well, those things are outside of our control, because what happens if the bad guys are just better than us this year? Does that mean that our season was a failure or we're failures?

And so trying to get them to live to a standard. So we talk a lot more about standards, not just technical standards in terms of statistics, but standards for how we want to live or how we want to do things. So the phrase that gets thrown out a lot in our gym is just, "Playing volleyball is something that we do. Being a volleyball player is not who we are."

Now, we have these ingrained traits or these inherent traits that make us good at volleyball. Maybe I'm a competitor or maybe I strive to be connected, right? So that makes me a really good teammate. And that happens to translate to the volleyball court really well. But being a volleyball player is just something that you do. But if you attach your identity to it, I think that's a slippery slope, specifically for young people.

Morgan: Yeah. No, I love that. What was that quote you said again? It was ...

David: Oh, just that being a volleyball ... Playing volleyball is something that we do. It's not who we are. And being a volleyball player is something that we're doing. It's not who we are.

And unfortunately, I think, when we're growing up, we get an identity for those things. I am a volleyball coach. Well, I coach volleyball, but I want to be great in my relationships. I want to be good for the people around me. I want to be a servant leader. So all of those things can make me a good volleyball coach, but a volleyball coach is not who I am.

Coach David Hunt’s Advice to Future Collegiate Athletes

Morgan: Yeah. Oh, no, that is great advice. And anyone that listens to this, they'll love hearing that. So thank you. This is another question for athletes wanting play at a team or university. What would your advice be to them?

David: That's a great question. Oh, man, there's so much that rushes to my head. Part of it has to do with my process when I was younger. The first thing is investigate where you're going and the people that you're going to be around, because the people that you're going to be around are going to be ... specifically when we're looking at the high school athlete that's looking to go to college. The people you meet in college are probably going to be the people that you go through life with for the most part. Sometimes, you stay in contact with your high school friends, your high school buddies. But for the most part, the relationships that you form in college are going to be the ones that last for the rest of your life. So make sure that the people that you're going to surround yourself with are people that you can see yourself going through big events with.

And then I think you got to look at the academic component, right? Because the volleyball can disappear real quick, whether it's an injury ...

Morgan: That's true.

David: ... whether it's in a pandemic, a global pandemic. It puts a stop to it.

Morgan: Yeah.

David: And that brings up, "Will sports look the same when they resume?" I don't know.

Morgan: It's true.

David: But where you are, you have to be surrounded by people that are like-minded, that help you elevate your current situation. So I'd pay a lot of attention to that.

Then the last one would just be, be authentic to who you are. Don't put on what you think the coach wants to hear. Don't put on what your parents want you to do. Just be authentic to who you are, because in the recruiting process, I view that as me and the athlete getting to work on our communication. Because if the athlete ultimately wants to come to the university that I'm at, there's going to be a lot of tough conversations. But if we know each other pretty well and can communicate effectively, and we've been doing that for the last two and a half years already, then those conversations, it doesn't make it easier to have, but I know how to frame a conversation and I know how to get the best out of that athlete.

So I look at it as a lot of communication practice for potentially some tough conversations ahead over the next four and five years. So those conversations are really difficult to have if you're not being authentic or you're giving a canned response that maybe you think mom and dad want you to give or your club coach wants you to give. And at the end of the day, I want to know the person that potentially I'm going to spend a lot of my time around, because the athletes, if I'm going to invest so much time and energy with them and for them, I want it to be for people that I genuinely care about. If you're full of it, then I don't necessarily want to spend a lot of time around you.

Morgan: Yeah. No, it's true. And it sounds like you're just naming traits that are not only good for being an athlete, but good for life.

David: Yeah. That's really ... You're using sport as a catalyst to teach them some life skills, but it's ... We want athletes that are resilient, gritty, that they can handle tough times. We don't want athletes that have to be happy to perform well. And they're all things that, like you said, are great life traits, qualities, whatever it is to being a functional human being.

Morgan: Yeah.

David: We can train some of those things, but it definitely ... it makes our job a lot easier as a coach if you have some of those things ingrained. And habits and behaviors are hard to change.

Morgan: Yeah.

David: So the more that you have coming into the situation, the better. And the volleyball stuff, in our sport, volleyball, that stuff is relatively easy compared to the personality things. So ...

Morgan: Yeah, that's true. Oh, well, thank you for that great advice.

David: Yeah.

A Little Known Fact About David Hunt

Morgan: What's one thing that no one knows about you that you can share with us?

David: You know what? Probably, because most of the time we're interacting with people in the gym or on the recruiting trail, but I'm a really introverted person. This social distancing stuff is great for me.

Morgan: Yeah.

David: I hang out at home. I hang out with my significant other and our English bulldog, and I can do that for the next six months and be happy as a clam.

Morgan: Yeah.

David: Yeah. Probably that I'm an introvert, introvert at heart. And just because ... And it's not that that would be shocking for the people that are in my life and know me. The athletes know that they can always find me in my office and they know that if I could spend 12 hours at work and all of it is spent in the office watching video, I'd be all about it.

Morgan: Yeah.

David: But just the people that don't know me too well and see from the outside, usually they've seen in the gym or usually they see in recruiting where we're much more interactive. So that's the only thing that [crosstalk 00:19:38].

Morgan: Yeah, it's true. People wouldn't know. So that's good to know about you. Thank you.

David: Yeah. There you go. Yeah.

Morgan: What's your next adventure? What's up next?

David: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if anybody knows what's going on.

Morgan: It's true.

David: Yeah, with so much uncertainty. I know ... I like golf. I like it because I can go out and I can do it with my significant other and she enjoys it. We can compete and it's something that we can do together. So I've been on the constant search for a golf course that's open, even though there's not very many around.

Morgan: That's fun.

David: So in the near future, it will be finding a golf course and getting outside and enjoying the nice weather. Volleyball wise, we're spending a lot of time just focusing on our team for next year. And we return almost everybody, so we have a talented young group, so just trying to prep and be good for them.

And yeah, I don't know. We'll see what a life holds, but just a lot of stuff has been put off, which I think has been great because we've been able to just shut it down. And then for me personally, focus on me and what's important to me and recalibrate. I think it's been good.

Morgan: Oh yeah. No. There's a lot of good that's come from this. And so I agree with you on those points. And that's fun that you're going to be golfing, looking for that.

David: Yeah. Right now, I think the only golf courses around are 120 miles from here and they're walking only. So I might be getting some real good exercise. I'm convinced to go get a tee time here pretty soon.

Morgan: Yeah. That's true. That's true. Well, good luck with that. Have fun golfing. And thanks so much for letting us get a glimpse into your wonderful team.

David: Yeah. No, I appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time. And yeah, it's always fun to talk about something that we're passionate about.

Pepperdine University Volleyball

• Pepperdine Men’s Volleyball Team Twitter

• Coach David Hunt Twitter

Podcast made in partnership with Acanela Expeditions

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