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during Stanford’s 30-25, 30-32, 30-18 win over Penn State in the 2010 NCAA Division I Men’s National Championship match on September 5, 2010 at Maples Pavilion in Stanford, CA.
Garrett Werner was part of the national championship-winning 2010 Stanford Volleyball team. The program was recently cut due to budgetary concerns.
during Stanford’s 30-25, 30-32, 30-18 win over Penn State in the 2010 NCAA Division I Men’s National Championship match on September 5, 2010 at Maples Pavilion in Stanford, CA.
Garrett Werner was part of the
… morePhoto: Courtesy Of Mike Rasay
Photo: Courtesy Of Mike Rasay
Image 1 of / 3
Image 1 of 3
during Stanford’s 30-25, 30-32, 30-18 win over Penn State in the 2010 NCAA Division I Men’s National Championship match on September 5, 2010 at Maples Pavilion in Stanford, CA.
Garrett Werner was part of the national championship-winning 2010 Stanford Volleyball team. The program was recently cut due to budgetary concerns.
during Stanford’s 30-25, 30-32, 30-18 win over Penn State in the 2010 NCAA Division I Men’s National Championship match on September 5, 2010 at Maples Pavilion in Stanford, CA.
Garrett Werner was part of the
… morePhoto: Courtesy Of Mike Rasay
Andrew Luck is a really nice dude.
That’s what I’d heard ever since he arrived on campus. Luck was two years behind me at Stanford; I played volleyball, while he, of course, played football. The fact that Andrew was a good guy was just icing on the cake: He was already the best Cardinal quarterback since John Elway.
I met Andrew in early 2011 in front of a diner on campus. I was walking with a volleyball teammate, Evan Romero. Andrew was eating at a picnic table with his girlfriend (now wife), Nicole, a gymnast Evan was friends with. Evan started talking with Nicole, leaving me with the reigning Orange Bowl MVP. I shook his massive hand and said, “Nice to meet you, my name’s Garrett. Congrats on the Orange Bowl.”
“Yeah, I know who you are,” he shot back. This surprised me.
Since a lot of our classes were in the same building, I figured he had seen me around and was just being polite. Andrew clarified, in his impossibly low voice that seemed to come from far deeper than his neckbeard, that the football team had followed our volleyball season the previous year. He said we were a big inspiration. This was very surprising.
It was surprising that Andrew Luck was even aware Stanford had a men’s volleyball program. But he knew more than that — he knew our story. How my team, despite offers from more accomplished volleyball programs, had chosen Stanford. How we went from being the worst team in the country to winning a national championship in four years. How we fulfilled a prophecy from our assistant coach — only for him to die a few weeks before he could see it.
Andrew Luck knew our story, but I’m not sure the current athletic department does. If so, they’ve decided it’s no longer worth telling. Despite volleyball being the fastest growing boys team sport in the country, on July 8, 2020, Stanford announced it would cut the program, along with 10 other varsity sports.
More than 240 current student athletes — 3.5% of the undergraduate population — are losing a big part of why they chose Stanford. Over 20 coaches are losing their jobs. Meanwhile, the athletic department employs 37 administrators with “athletic director” in their title, including 21 assistant athletic directors. After cutting 11 programs, this means Stanford will have almost 1.5 athletic directors per sport.
The cut varsity programs have given the university 20 NCAA championships and 27 Olympic medals, but Stanford is cutting more than accolades and medals. They’re cutting stories like mine.
Photo: Courtesy Of Mike Rasay
Garrett Werner was part of the national championship-winning 2010 Stanford Volleyball team. The program was recently cut due to budgetary concerns.
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I grew up in the suburbs of Milwaukee, which is not known to be a volleyball powerhouse like Los Angeles and Hawaii. Entering high school, like many midwestern boys, I’d played soccer for 8 years and hated every minute of it. I wanted to play a sport where I’d never have to run again, and volleyball seemed perfect for a kid who had always been tall for his age.
I signed up for my high school team and immediately fell in love. There’s a reason people of every age, color, and creed play volleyball in parks, gyms, and beaches all over the world: It’s hard to have a bad time bouncing a ball back and forth over a net.
While attending an Olympic training camp after my sophomore year, I met John Kosty, then-assistant coach and now head coach of men’s volleyball at Stanford. After the camp, I emailed him, saying Stanford was my dream school for all the reasons it should be everyone’s dream school. Kosty responded that they’d keep an eye on me. I couldn’t believe it.
At the start of my senior year, I applied to Stanford. The phone call telling me I was admitted was one of the happiest moments of my life. I committed immediately.
When Andrew Luck signed for Stanford, it was in front of news cameras and bulb flashes. I signed my letter of intent with a Stanford pen at my kitchen table wearing a Stanford sweatshirt. My mom took a picture. We were all thrilled.
That was the first time I thought, “I wonder if Stanford volleyball is any good?” I found out that they had a losing record, but it’s not like I was the best volleyball player in the country (or even the state). I just wanted to play a sport I loved while going to my dream school. If we didn’t win, that wouldn’t bug me.
Turns out, it did bug me. My freshman year, we went 3–25 and it sucked. WE sucked. And the experience was anything but a dream.
One early match was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to play against IPFW in front of a packed field house. For a pregame meal, we ate the lunch special at a Golden Corral. It was only a few minutes before 4 p.m., when the price would go from $8 for lunch to $10 for dinner. We ate at the buffet so we had enough calories to play that night (and lose), and still have enough money to return to the Golden Corral the next day (and lose again that night).
That year, we only had 13 guys on the team. Injuries meant we usually couldn’t even pull a full scrimmage together. Kosty and the rest of the coaching staff had to fill in as players during drills.
One of those coaches, Al Rodrigues, soon became my freshman class’s favorite. Al was a volunteer assistant and had been with the program for longer than anyone else. He was a 65-year-old, 5’8” teacher who had taught himself volleyball when he was appointed coach of a high school girls’ team in the ’80s. What he lacked in personal experience he more than made up for in attitude. We 18- and 19-year olds were frustrated, but Al would never bat an eye. He told us not to worry, we’d “go from worst to first.” All we needed to do was keep fighting. It was what I’d come to expect from volunteer coaches: old school enthusiasm and smiles. I was sure we were the 20th class of freshmen he’d said the same thing to.
Though we lost a lot, my class loved one another and worked hard, day after day, loss after loss. We developed a reputation around the athletic department as five long-haired, goofy guys who sure did lose a lot of volleyball matches, but with a good attitude. Administrators smiled at us like you smile at a dog with three legs: inarguably sad, but at least our tail was wagging.
Our next season went better. We were buoyed by an incoming freshman class who, like me, was unaffected by a dismal record. We finally had more players, so we weren’t getting as many injuries and saw real improvement. On road trips, my class of five guys would chat with all on road trips. One of my teammates always wanted to talk about volleyball (and still does). I wanted to talk about anything else, and Al was always available for conversations. I’d ask him how to get girls to like me. He warned me about marrying the wrong woman. Al was always a few steps ahead.
We finished with a winning record but got swept in the first round of the conference tournament. We were no longer “worst,” but a heck of a long way from “first.”
Photo: Courtesy Of Mike Rasay
Garrett Werner was part of the national championship-winning 2010 Stanford Volleyball team. The program was recently cut due to budgetary concerns.
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The summer before my junior year, Al came into our run-down locker room. He gave me a big hug and apologized for how much he was burping. He was having digestive issues, and everything he could keep down was making him belch uncontrollably.
When we got back to campus, Coach Kosty told us that Al had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. He began chemo therapy and nevertheless kept showing up for practice. He walked what he had always talked: The only way things can get better is to keep fighting.
Al coached with a bag of chemo hanging off of a volleyball cart. He visibly lost weight: The round and jolly Al had skin hanging off his bones. He couldn’t travel anymore, but he still attended home games. That year, we had another talented incoming freshman class, but we finished at about the same spot as the previous season. It felt like a major setback. Again, we weren’t the worst, but perhaps we were destined to be middle-of-the-road. Nowhere near the “first” Al had foreseen. We were frustrated. Al said, “Keep fighting.”
Al’s health deteriorated, but we remained optimistic. I remember going to Al’s house with some teammates to help him move a new bed that would make sleeping more comfortable. His fiancee cooked us Polynesian food. It was delicious. Al couldn’t eat any of it. By my senior year, Al’s health was in a downward spiral. He was too sick to come to practice, and rarely had enough energy to come to home games.
On the court, we won more and the university started to notice. Students spent their Friday and Saturday nights cheering us on in costumes (Star Wars was a favorite). The matches brought disparate corners of the campus together. Apparently, even Andrew Luck was watching.
For the first time since 2001, on March 8, 2010, the American Collegiate Volleyball Association voted Stanford the No. 1 team in the nation. We framed the press release and went to Al’s house, where he was now in hospice care. Al could barely hold the frame, but it validated what he knew our freshman year. I had been wrong to think Al had told every class the same thing year after year. He knew we could do it. He believed in us. We went from worst to first.
On March 19, 11 days after we fulfilled his prophecy, Alfonso Robert Rodrigues passed away from stomach cancer.
We felt devastated. Coach Kosty presided over the funeral service, which we attended as a team. Since Al was a Coast Guard vet, a member of the military presented Al’s mother, who survived him at age 92, with a U.S. flag. The next day we had a match in San Diego, then another in Long Beach.
We dedicated the season to Al and, with “AL” patches on our sleeves, we earned the right to compete for the national championship on our home court.
Four years after being one of the worst teams in the nation and less than two months after our coach passed away, Stanford won its first NCAA championship since 1997. We sold out the basketball team’s arena, and for the rest of the school year, I was congratulated by classmates I’d never met and who had never seen a volleyball match before.
In the locker room that night, Kosty made a speech about Al. Al had been right, and it was more than a coaches poll that said so. We had the NCAA trophy that Al knew we could win. It was just a couple months too late for him to see it.
Photo: Courtesy Of Mike Rasay
Garrett Werner was part of the national championship-winning 2010 Stanford Volleyball team. The program was recently cut due to budgetary concerns.
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Andrew Luck and the Stanford football team had seen something inspiring in our story. They too had been bad for a while, but the fall after we won our championship, they went 12–1 and won the Orange Bowl.
The football team rose from laughing stock to perennial competitor. My volleyball team rose from being the worst in the country to national champions. Stanford is full of similar stories.
When I think back to my time at Stanford, I don’t remember my teachers’ names. I got degrees in civil engineering, but since I don’t work in that field, I don’t recall any of the formulas. What I remember are the lessons that volleyball and Al taught me. I use them every day: Even if you’re the worst in the nation at something, face the challenges. And Golden Corral prices go up by $2 at 4 p.m.
Right now, the challenge Stanford student-athletes face comes from its own administration. Administrators claim to have exhausted all options, without discussing them with the volleyball community. Since a small group of administrators made this decision behind closed doors, already more than 33,000 people have signed a petition to reinstate the program. Alumni have launched a $15 million+ campaign to raise an endowment to support a sustainable, thriving program. The University has said it does not care, that no matter the amount of money raised, they do not want a men’s volleyball program anymore.
Stanford has been a pipeline of talent for professional teams overseas for decades. Since 1988, the USA has never sent a men’s volleyball team to the Olympics without a player from Stanford. The US National Team currently has four Stanford alumni on its roster. Soon, that legacy will disappear.
Stanford is risking missing out on this growing and diversifying sport. High school participation has grown more than 20% in the past five years. The 2020-21 NCAA season will see the introduction of a new conference thanks to six new programs at historically Black colleges. Stanford apparently no longer wishes to be a leader on this front.
Stanford doesn’t support a men’s volleyball team to sell jerseys or increase television revenue. Stanford has a men’s volleyball program because it teaches students to work together and to think broadly and deeply and contribute to the world around them. Because the men’s volleyball program develops good people. Because of coaches like Kosty and Al.
Stanford birthed Silicon Valley. An entrepreneurial attitude is everywhere on the Farm; a spirit that you don’t need someone’s permission to do something great. If you work hard, no matter where you start from, you can achieve excellence.
The men’s volleyball team doesn’t need much to keep going. We just need to be allowed to keep fighting, how Al always taught us to.
Photo: Courtesy Of Mike Rasay
Garrett Werner was part of the national championship-winning 2010 Stanford Volleyball team. The program was recently cut due to budgetary concerns.
Garrett Werner is a writer living in Los Angeles. He can be reached at garrettwerner.com, on Twitter at @ohgr8itsgarrett, or by email at GarrettsAgentWhoExists@gmail.com.
