The UP volleyball team, which will be showcased in an open purple and white scrimmage on Saturday, Aug. 22 from 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. at the Chiles Center, is the focus of the recent Tim Denison article in the Portland Examiner.
Portland Examiner article
Stories are an integral part of sports. There is no single competition that is not made more enjoyable and satisfying when the stories of the individuals and the program are known. If you’ve engaged in the story of an athlete or a team, you know the different forms that a story can take. The Star Athlete suffers from a triple-digit fever, but turns in the performance of his life. The Juggernaut football program loses their quarterback; can they still dominate? The longest World Series drought in baseball history – will it end this year?
Perhaps the most compelling stories in sports, though, are those that center around the desire, determination, and faith of a group of individuals that by all accounts has no business succeeding in their chosen arena. Think Rocky. Think Hoosiers. Think Miracle. These Cinderella stories capture the hearts of anyone who listens, sports fan or not, because of the transcendent nature of the story they tell. This is not just about athletics, this is about being human. It’s about that indelible part of the human soul that burns to be part of something larger than itself. And the longer the odds are in the beginning, the more compelling the journey to glory becomes.
In sports films, the viewer is able to witness the beginning, to see the impossibility of the dream and the determination of the athlete in the face of the staggering odds, and to follow their improbable but inspiring climb to success. In life, however, we are frequently only made aware of the humble beginnings of a team and the sheer magnitude of what they have accomplished after they have achieved greatness or are already on the cusp of it. How much greater the satisfaction for those fans who were with their team in the beginning and shared in their rise to greatness, with all the moments of desperation and elation along the way?
Enter University of Portland Volleyball.
While the University of Portland may be known for it's wildly successful women's soccer program, there is perhaps no collegiate team in the country more prepared to be the next great Cinderella sports story than the Pilots. As for humble beginnings, Portland has not won more than two (out of 14) conference matches in the last six years, and in their history have only a 23.7% winning percentage. As for insurmountable odds, the West Coast Conference in which UP plays, has a strong volleyball pedigree. The WCC finished with three teams ranked in the top 25 in the country last year, and sent – as usual – multiple teams to the postseason.
In volleyball, as in all sports, success breeds success. Talented players go to winning programs. Without a successful past, history-changing players rarely fall into a team’s lap. Without wins, a program must be built from the ground up to be competitive, and that takes a special kind of leader. A program builder. A coach capable of creating a total far greater than the sum of its parts.
Enter Joe Houck.
Coach Houck came to the University of Portland in January of 2008. In eight years as a head coach with Concordia University and Western Oregon University, Houck took the two struggling programs and built them into conference powers. He has earned conference coach of the year honors four times, and has taken his teams to four national tournaments, the first coach in each school’s history to reach the postseason.
“Joe is a coach that has had success at every stop along his career path,” Portland Athletic Director Larry Williams has said. “His ability to develop and take multiple programs to unprecedented levels is no fluke. He is a program builder and his record speaks for itself. Joe values the importance of education and applies it to his philosophy of teaching on the court, making him an excellent addition to the University of Portland family.”
Houck has rounded out his coaching staff with former Concordia assistant coach Michael King, and Sara Reilly, who played for Coach Houck during his days as an assistant coach at Eastern Washington.
Coach Houck is a proven program builder, but he is not working from scratch at UP. Houck will helm a 2009 team that returns four starters and a total of eight letter winners from last year, including kills leader junior Jessica Clemens, and sophomore Marissa Plummer who made the 2008 All-WCC Freshman team, breaking a long drought of Pilots from All-Conference honors. The team also welcomes a talented and balanced freshman class comprised of four players, including former high school first team All-State Selections Ariel Usher and Kate Bostwick, as well as Jessica Baty, a transfer from Houck’s Western Oregon team who redshirted for Portland last year.
The history of Portland Pilot volleyball is about to become just that: history. They’re finished taking abuse from the wicked stepsisters, and they’re preparing to climb up out of the musty, dank cellar of the WCC. You can wait until they’ve become royalty to pay attention, but then you’ll miss entering into – and becoming part of – the story as it unfolds.
To join the journey, visit the University of Portland website for tickets, and check back here for updates all year long.
