Signing up and setting up the love of volleyball with Coppin State head coach Tim Walsh

Coppin State University volleyball coach Tim Walsh discusses the growth of volleyball, particularly in high schools and among younger players with Nestor as our flagship Eagles spotlight highlights the family and social aspect of the sport and its increasing popularity. Coach Walsh also shares his coaching journey and background in sign language and its integration into his coaching at Coppin.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Coppin State, volleyball growth, high school teams, beach leagues, Olympic volleyball, NCAA teams, collegiate volleyball, recruiting process, conference play, professional pathways, sign language, Coppin family, MEAC tournament, player development, volleyball season

SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

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Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T AM, 1570 towns in Baltimore and Baltimore, positive. One of the really cool things we do around here, and we brag about it all the chance we get, is our longtime relationship with COVID State University. We air their games. If you’re ever in the car, sometimes in the evening, your basketball game, volleyball game, softball game, and me at championship, whatever’s going on that happens. And we’re also sort of gathering our friends over COVID state after all these years, been 14 years now as partners and bringing on lots of guests and for segments, professors, teachers, academics, and still friends in the athletic department, and we have some defending champions around there at Sherman reed on a couple weeks ago. He’s trying to get me a COVID state baseball shirt, but I have a feeling by the time we’re done with this, I’m gonna have a volleyball shirt on. He has been the head coach, I think, eight years now, Coach Tim Welsh, Tim Walsh, excuse me, excuse me. Joining me here, but I know I’ve had you on before through all of this, and I know your background out in Carroll County. And welcome. It’s good to have you on. We don’t talk enough volleyball around here. Coach,

01:11

thanks for having me.

Nestor Aparicio  01:12

How does one get into the volleyball space? Because it always came to me downtown. I lived, I lived at the harbor. There were always volleyball tournaments going on over at the convention center. My buddy Matt Campbell runs it over there. I’m like, I would just see just an influx, like half of New Jersey and Pennsylvania was down here. There’s just a lot of kids playing volleyball. And I think by his son, I had a daughter want to play a game. I loved playing volleyball as, like, a beach sport and an intramural thing. And I feel like it’s, that’s an entry way that’s a little different than soccer, basketball, lacrosse or baseball, for anyone that plays the game.

01:49

Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, right now it’s, it’s the most growing sport in, you know, high school athletics, which is awesome. So more and more teams, more and more people are learning about volleyball and joining it. And there’s more divisions, starting younger too. So now you have eight, nine year olds starting they’re going to tournaments. So when you see those big convention centers, you know they’re filling in with those 18 teens and 1716 but now you’re having eight, nine and 10 year olds that are playing as well. So you know, my daughter just went to camp this summer, which is awesome. So she’s eight, and now she’s starting to play volleyball a little bit. So

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Nestor Aparicio  02:25

she can’t even spike the ball, right?

02:26

Say it again.

Nestor Aparicio  02:27

She can’t even spike the ball. No, not

02:29

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yet. Not yet. She’s learning, though, we’re getting there. Well, that’s when you

Nestor Aparicio  02:33

get to have the fun. It’s like learning how to dunk when you play volleyball. What was your entry point coach? I mean, I and and collegiate volleyball, I would say my entry point was summer camp and playing, having fun, and then at a beach, I tell my wife all the time, we had a volleyball net all of a senior week, she went Ocean City. We set up a net, and it just attracted people, girls, but people, and it gave us of it was, it was a fun thing that was semi competitive, but we would set up in the in the in the back lot, in my alley, and play volleyball. And it was something the adults could do with kids. And I think about it as like, I think a flow Hyman. I think of the 84 Olympic team that it sort of came to Americans on the Olympic trail. That’s 40 years ago now. And I think of the growth of all of these other sports, soccer in this country, lacrosse, certainly in the country, but in the region. And I think volleyball is the thing that I feel like people of my generation, everybody played. It was kind of like horseshoes. It was something where easy rules, family oriented, picnicky. It was an easy entry point to put up a net. You could play it almost anywhere.

03:39

Yeah, it’s definitely a fun social thing. There’s leagues all over Baltimore. There’s beach leagues, and then there’s grass leagues. Pennsylvania is really big in the grass too. So the leagues are just, you know, growing and growing as well. So people who are young adults coming out of college, you know, maybe like, first year into into real employment, they’re coming out and they’re doing social things with volleyball. So it’s definitely a social thing. Games at the collegiate level, you know, we’re inviting clubs. We’re inviting different teams to come watch so they can see what Division One volleyball looks like. So it’s definitely, definitely growing in all aspects. And you know, men’s volleyball is also growing. Teams are adding NCAA teams are adding now too. So, you know, it’s nice to see the the big influx of volleyball.

Nestor Aparicio  04:23

Well, I think the other thing is, and I told this story a couple weeks ago, during the Olympics this summer, I have friends, my friend Dave shining, who’s been on the crab cake tour with me, lives NFL point, works for The Washington Post. He’s covered the last 20 Olympics. We just buried my dear friend, Phil Jackman, who covered many Olympics in the 70s and the 80s. He actually wrote a piece for the 1984 volleyball team for for the magazine 40 years ago. So I’ve had this Olympic thing where I talk about it. It happens every two or four years, depending. We don’t do a lot of winter sports around here, but the Michael Phelps thing kept us alive here, the swimming thing here, but the. Volleyball, part of it this summer. It was one of the first sports that played. But I had friends that were in Paris, and, you know, I didn’t think of going to Paris during the Olympics, a little crowded, a little expensive, a little bit of this and that, but it’s on my bucket list of things I’ve never done. I didn’t get to go to Atlanta or anything here. And the first picture that I saw on my timeline, old girlfriend of mine was over there with her friends, and they’re in the cheer space, and, you know, they travel the world a little bit. It was this incredible picture of beach volleyball in front of the Eiffel Tower. And I thought, well, first of the beautiful game, it’s fast, it moves. It’s great for television. You know, from a points perspective, you can understand that it’s not a complicated game in that way, and just the optics of that. I thought, well, now look at that. Look at what they’ve done with volleyball from when I was interviewing Karch Karai down in rash field 30 years ago, when he was bringing in beach volleyball here. Yeah, absolutely. That

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05:57

was one of the best scenes. I think everyone still talks about that in Paris, you know, that the Eiffel Tower and the night games and the back and forth rallies in the sand. So that was definitely something that was epic for for volleyball itself, and Nebraska, you know, they, they had the largest crowd ever. So that just became something last year, you know, they held a game in a stadium, and it was sold out. So that was, that was, really, I

Nestor Aparicio  06:21

didn’t know about that. Tell me about that. I don’t know the Nebraska. I’m not a volleyball Insider. That’s why I have people like you want from COVID State coach,

06:29

yeah. So Nebraska, you know, one of the best teams in the nation, renowned, renowned athletic program. And they decided, hey, let’s have a sell out crowd. Let’s, let’s have a record selling crowd. So they put a floor into a football stadium and sold it out. And it was a night game, and it was, it was amazing. So, you know, biggest crowd ever in NCAA volleyball. So it was cool. See,

Nestor Aparicio  06:51

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I didn’t even come to my desk. And you are a person NCAA coach, Tim Walsh, is here. Um, you are local, correct? I know of you guys. I talk to you a little bit about Carroll County. You’re a real teacher, real educator. And I mean, you’re there at Coppin taking these young people who have fallen in love with volleyball. Um, it’s, it’s a world I don’t know much about. Teach me a little bit about collegiate volleyball. And certainly, there’s a a North Star in Nebraska that I’ve learned about in the last 90 seconds.

07:23

Yeah. I mean, so, born and raised in New York, and then made my way down here for undergrad, and then have just stayed, you know, earned my Master’s degree, and then stayed, started teaching, coaching High School, track and field and volleyball, and then just, you know, moved up from division three to division one. And, you know, Division One is just a different game. You have scholarship opportunities. You have people seeking to earn those scholarship opportunities. So everyone wants to put their best foot forward, and you have to find what’s right for your program, culturally, academically, you know, athletically. And here at Coppin, it’s really nice. We have a family oriented it’s small space. It’s a lot of hands on, and it’s a lot of growing and developing. And so, you know, we’re not going to get those power five kids that are, you know, on PrEP dig and, you know, going to look at Penn State in Nebraska, and we realize that. But, you know, every year we’re getting recruits that are bigger and better than previous years. And so that just shows you that, you know, we are capable of recruiting some really, really good athletes, and that’s exciting for our program. It’s exciting for our school. It’s exciting for our area. Last year, we had some graduates who are now playing professionally. And so, you know, just looking back and saying, Hey, my first year here, you know, we won four games. It was crazy. And and just, how many

Nestor Aparicio  08:37

do you play? Give everybody a primer on what the season, what’s a year look like for student athlete and for coaching and recruiting in your industry?

08:46

Yeah. So athletes, you know, tend to come in. Some schools have them come in the summer and they take summer classes, and then they’re here to work out and, you know, they’re able to have that camaraderie and kind of build over the summer. And then you have preseason, which is heavy in tournament. So that’s when you travel and you play different conferences. So that typically happens, you know, from all of August and then into the beginning of September, and then everyone starts conference play. So conference play, obviously, you know, you’re within that region, and you’re playing teams multiple times and trying to earn that birth to the NCAA tournament. And then spring, you know, looks different for everybody. Some people start really early. Some people start late. We tend to start late just because of facilities and, you know, with other sports and conflicts and things. So we start late. We play, you know, three tournaments in the spring, and just a lot of individual work where we’re looking to get, you know, faster and stronger in the spring, compared to the fall, where it’s competitive, it counts on our record and, you know, and then throughout that whole entire process, you know, as coaches, we’re not only watching film, developing practices and plans and staying busy, but we’re also finding, you know, new student athletes for the following year. Yes, and even two years out or three years out. So, you know, we’re constantly trying to get our feelers out there looking at film. I think, I don’t know if there’s a day that goes by where I don’t watch, you know, future recruits and, you know, receive emails and respond to emails. So it’s a busy time, but it’s fun, and it’s definitely something that you know you have to have a passion for you have to love it. And you know that’s, that’s why I’m

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Nestor Aparicio  10:25

here. Do you still play pickup games at the beach or no,

10:29

I’m retired. No, you’re done. You’re done. Good. I can hit standing down, but I’m I don’t jump anymore, so I’m out. He is

Nestor Aparicio  10:37

the coach at the COVID state volleyball squad. He is the winningest coach in Eagles history. He’s been there eight years. I’m saying eight, right? Are we in eight? Are we in nine? Where are we? We’re in eight. Alright, conference play, conference tournament. The pathway to be in the tournament and to even stand on a court within Nebraska or Penn State, what’s the pathway from where you are and how many programs play volleyball. Most colleges have a volleyball program, right? Like I some lacrosse is sort of catching on. Some places have bowling. Some places don’t, some places don’t have baseball anymore. But I but your sport, I would think, is pretty well supported throughout the country, right? Yeah,

11:15

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I think there’s a 343 teams this year in Division one. So there was a couple that added, you know, moved up from division two, a couple of d1 programs dropped. So, you know, just varies year to year. But usually you have between, like, 335 to 345 teams for division one. So,

Nestor Aparicio  11:34

so how do you get into the what’s the tournament? What’s the brackets look like in in volleyball? How does that work? Yeah.

11:40

So they take 64 teams, similar to, like basketball, you know, and then if you win, you automatically get a birth into the conference, NCAA Tournament. And then based on your ranking in other like, obviously, Power Five schools, so even maybe number eight, you know, they don’t win their conference, but they still get a birth into the NCAA Tournament, similar to to basketball. And we also have a secondary tournament as well. So the nivc is similar to like the NIT.

Nestor Aparicio  12:10

Well, this is a time where I ask, how’s the team doing? Where? Where are we in the on the curve of all this? Because the last couple weeks and one thing about September, kids get back to school and back into thing. You guys sort of ramp up a little earlier in the volleyball program, right? Like school, school and back on campus, and competitive sports, especially for soccer, football, anybody playing this time of year, it ramps up a lot earlier. You feel like you’re in the middle of it, not in the beginning of it, right? Yeah, we’re

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12:35

definitely in the middle towards the end. So we’re halfway through conference play. We have seven more matches or conference plan, then we go right into the tournament. So it’s a pretty quick season. You wait all year for it, you know, you plan for it, you prep for it, and then once you’re in it, you know, you’re fully in it. So come August one, you know, we’re diving head in and we’re just going for it until, you know, Thanksgiving, or hopefully after, if we get that birth. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  12:58

you got some great players. Let’s talk about your kids and where they come from and how they get here. And I’ve never met a coach that love their the whoever their athletes are, especially at your level, where they’re picking you, you’re picking them, trying to find a good situation. You’re eight years into this. You have 28 and 30 and 32 year olds out in the world now who played for you and trying to lay down what the Eagles volleyball program is going to be all about. I mean, you clearly have a little system there, and a lot of success lately. Yeah, it’s

13:30

been, it’s been fun. You know, part of the process is getting to know people and building rapports with them. And, you know, so my former players are still texting me, you know, congratulating and saying, Hey, what’s up? How are you? How are the kids? And that’s, that’s part of why I do this, you know, we want to see them develop as people and grow and whatever pathway they want. So if they’re going to be a teacher or a nurse, you know, or if they’re going to play professional, you know, we’re going to support them any way we can. And so that’s one imprint that we have here, you know, we want, we want to develop those relationships with with our players. And I think we do that from, you know, the bottom of the roster to the top of the roster. And you know, we treat everybody as family here.

Nestor Aparicio  14:10

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Well, you talk about all the vocations and out in the nursing world, or out in the real world professional volleyball, tell me about that. I, I, you know, that’s an educational thing for me. Is there? There is such a pathway, I would not have guessed that at the beginning of this conversation.

14:26

Yeah. So the in the US, they just developed a new league, which is AU, so a lot of the power five players who graduate, they end up playing professionally in the US, but in Europe, you know, it’s huge. And so there’s different agencies, and just like there would be, you know, for the NFL or the NBA, and you know, you find an agent, and they find you a home. And so, you know, you get different offers. You look at contracts and you find what’s the best fit for you. So, you know, we have some players that are playing in Europe right now, and that’s super exciting, you know, to put our. Name on the map, you know, for that, and now we have relationships with those agents as well. So it just helps for the future of our student athletes.

Nestor Aparicio  15:09

I’m getting old now, coach. I’m 56 couple weeks ago, but I’ve been doing this a long time, and I met a lot of young men from, you know, difficult circumstances, who played basketball throughout the area here in all the years. And they would say, you know, Kirk Lee from tasking, well, yeah, I played over in Europe for a couple years. And then they would come back at 3030 to do the show. And like, yeah, I played Stockholm. I played in Greece. I played here. I played in Russia, you know. And then I meet people like Brian raussen, that coach over in the South Pacific, and Surabaya and Jakarta and just but volleyball is a sport that, when I’ve been in Europe, there’s a huge calling for that, just young people to go on a pathway and have that kind of experience to go, Yeah, I played in Europe for a couple years. That’s a big deal. It’s a big life deal. I think too, absolutely,

15:58

absolutely, I mean, and it’s a, it’s a once in a lifetime kind of thing, you know,

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Nestor Aparicio  16:02

you want to get 24 once

16:04

Right? Exactly, exactly. You’re only 2122 23 for so long. So it’s amazing for them. It’s amazing for their families and their friends and just to experience themselves. But even going into the the workforce, you know, you come back and you say, Hey, I learned a lot about myself and in Europe, you know, I played here for two years. I did this for three years. So it just helps you, you know in your future as well. So it’s exciting for them.

Nestor Aparicio  16:27

Coach Tim Walsh is here from COVID state. They are our partner, very proudly within their flagship for a long time, but we’re doing more peeling back the the people behind COVID State University or Baltimore positive, and trying to chat with her. So as people you coached and taught for a period of time at Fred Scott Key I do my show out of green mount station at crab cakes out in Carroll County, in Eldersburg, with my buddy Dante laboratory and all that from my Dundalk guys out out there as well. But for for you with sign language, I see that on your resume, there is never a time my wife and I drive down New York Avenue that in DC where I don’t see Gallaudet and think about sign language and different things that teaching and sports and all of that that is such a unique gift. I have several friends that have children that were born deaf, and now cochlear implants has changed life in a general sense, but you have a skill set that, when I see it on the resume, I gotta talk about that blind people and deaf people, incredible inspiration for me. Yeah,

17:31

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it’s just something that kind of we fell into, like in New York, we went to our elementary school as a mainstream school, so we had deaf kids that came into the public school system, and they had interpreters all day that followed them. And part of our curriculum was we had to learn, you know, sign language. And then I arrived at Towson Elementary Ed major, and then I picked up deaf studies. So I started taking just more in depth, you know, sign language based courses and speech pathology and audiology, and learning about that, and, you know, just picked it up. It was just like, kind of a natural thing, and went into my master’s degree and did my internship at Maryland School for the Deaf. So I taught third, fourth and fifth grade there, graduated and taught at FSK special ed, and then sign language as well. So we actually use it in our gym too. So some of the signs that we have for our plays are sign language based. So it’s, it’s kind of fun. The girls kind of experience with it. How do you say this, and how do you say that? And so some of our plays are, are sign language based as well. So well,

Nestor Aparicio  18:33

if anybody on the other side knows they’re they’ll be like Bill Belichick, they’d be stealing your signs, right?

18:37

Yeah, right, right. We try to hide it under our, under our under our jersey. So Coach, I

Nestor Aparicio  18:41

tell you, there’s nothing more badass than being at Merriweather and some bands playing like noisy, crazy rock, and the sign person’s doing all the signing. And I think it’s cool, but you actually can read it. Yeah,

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18:53

yeah, interpreting is, is an awesome career. So, you know, there’s the music, the court system, there’s the medical field, there’s the teaching education. So there’s all these fields for interpreting, but it’s a great, great career.

Nestor Aparicio  19:05

You know, the one thing I told Doctor Anthony Jenkins over cop and I said, you know, we’ll do this thing. We’ll have these people on just special people. There’s a special people that know how to do that. And I think that’s what makes Coppin pretty cool. My time over at Coppin has been incredible over decades, going back to Fang Mitchell, Fang, bringing the kids out 98 when they they went and won the big game as the 15 seed. So I’ve had a three decade relationship with COVID. Um, tell me what you love about COVID and what attracting you that because you go to work there every day. You wear it on your chest. You recruit into it. Um, you know, there’s a reputational thing about anything in the city, I think, for people in the county, and I’m always trying to work through that stigma. Yeah,

19:46

so, I mean, COVID is just small, so it’s nice. It’s kind of everyone kind of knows everyone. When you go on campus, you know, you could go to the cafeteria on a tour, and everyone in that cafeteria is like, Hey, Coach Walsh, how are you? You know, who’s this and where are they? And so everyone’s kind of interested in everyone, which makes it nice, you know, and that’s across campus, that’s through academics and athletics as well. So it’s kind of like this family oriented. Everyone kind of supports each other, which is nice, kind of a bigger programs. I don’t think you always have that. I think you have, you know, focus on, you know, one or two coaches, one or two sports, and everyone kind of just, is there to do their job. But here it’s kind of more collaborative. Well, you

Nestor Aparicio  20:25

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look like you’re enjoying yourself. And hey, good luck to your team. It was really great to visit with you. And I, I bet you didn’t think I was going to ask you about sign language today, did

20:33

you? No, I did not. I

Nestor Aparicio  20:34

did not, you know, I didn’t give you the crib notes and all of that stuff. So next couple weeks for your team, what’s the pathway for you? Yeah,

20:41

we’re just going to try to, you know, get better 1% every day, watch film, learn our opponents, and, you know, just grow on and off the court. So that way, come in a couple weeks when we have the the MEAC tournament, we’re able to come out on top. Alright,

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Nestor Aparicio  20:56

man. Well, let’s get back to the kids. Get back to campus. I really appreciate the visit. We’re going to be visiting with all folks all over the campus of COVID state as part of our partnership and our flagship great to run the games at nights and in the afternoons and tournament time, it’s better to get to know the people over COVID state. We always appreciate that. Appreciate time. Head volleyball coach Tim Walsh joining us here from campus over in West Baltimore. We’ll be telling you more about COVID state. We have the whole schedule app, and you can learn more at Coppin State sports com. Get all the schedule all the teams getting ready for basketball season over there too. With Stu I am Nestor. We are W, N, S T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking Baltimore. Positive. I gotta learn how to do that in sign language and that, though it’s only a couple of words. I figure I can learn a couple words. I should learn my name, hello, thank you and Baltimore. Positive. You.