An Oral History Celebrating 40 Years of Men's Volleyball
How It All Began
In 1978, three students at Indiana University - Purdue University Fort Wayne had a simple question.
Dan Scott, Paul Wyss and Collin Leiter had played boys’ volleyball at Paul Harding High School and they wanted to continue playing the sport.
The three of them went to their high school coach, who at the time was 35 years old, just eight years removed from playing collegiate volleyball himself: Armond “Arnie” Ball.
They asked him, “Why is there no men’s volleyball team at IPFW? Why don’t we start a club team?”
A simple enough proposition, but Ball already had his hands full.
“Let me think about this for a second,” Ball said. “I’m coaching baseball, boys’ and girls’ volleyball, teaching full time and I have three kids.”
Oh…
“The answer… is yes! Let’s do that!”
Wait a minute… He said yes?
Okay! We’re in business!
Scott, Wyss and Leiter, along with the guidance of Ball, gathered three acquaintances who were also students at IPFW to join the team, and with a team of six, the men’s volleyball club team at IPFW was officially founded.
That same year, the IPFW athletic department was in need of a sports information director, an administrator to oversee the athletic training staff and the intramural program, and a coach for the women’s volleyball team.
Ball decided to interview with IPFW and the administration decided that he fit the bill.
“They decided that I could do all those things at one time,” Ball said. “And said ‘by the way, we’ll throw this caveat in, let’s make the men’s volleyball program a varsity program.’ I said, ‘that’s what I wanted in the first place!’”
The foundation was laid.
The IPFW men’s volleyball club team had a head coach and an administration with a plan to make it a varsity sport.
One small problem. Where would the team play?
IPFW was, for the majority, a commuter school, and there was only one building on campus at the time, which was purely for academics. The school did have varsity men’s and women’s basketball and women’s volleyball teams, but they all practiced and competed off campus in a variety of facilities around Fort Wayne. So, the men’s volleyball team would have to follow suit. However, it would not be long before the administration would announce plans for that as well.
During the infancy of the men’s team, they played matches at the Seminary, Paul Harding High School and New Haven Junior High School, whichever was available.
“When we played at New Haven, they sprayed the ceiling with asbestos. Can’t do that nowadays, obviously, but every time we would hit a ball into the ceiling we would have to come sweep the floor to wipe up all the asbestos.”
The situation may not have been ideal from a facilities standpoint. But it could have been worse.
Who the men’s club would play was never really in question. The team had joined the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association’s club division.
In this club division, IPFW had the fresh faces, matching up against other club teams like Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue and Bowling Green, but also played some varsity squads like Ball State and Earlham.
The road trips while at the club level were nothing like what they’re like today. There were no charter buses. No flights. No fancy hotels.
There was a motorhome.
That’s how they traveled to games, and if they were playing late, that’s where they slept on the way home.
* * *
Three years after the inception of the club program, the IPFW was ready to go varsity.
According to a 1980 article in the IPFW Communicator, the school newspaper at the time, the men’s volleyball program’s budget increased $1,600 from its club days to a first-year varsity budget of $2,300.
In 1981, the move became official, and the men’s volleyball program was a varsity team at IPFW.
An added bonus, the IPFW administration had announced a few years prior that a facility solely for athletics would be constructed. It opened in the spring of 1981 and would go on to be named the Hilliard Gates Sports Center.
As it happened, the MIVA was looking to expand its varsity membership in 1981. At the time, Ball State, Ohio State, Bowling Green, Earlham, George Williams, Cincinnati and Kellogg were varsity, but the conference had lost membership from Indiana, Anderson, Calvin, Michigan State, Illinois-Chicago, Michigan, Wright State and Wisconsin in the 10 years prior.
IPFW was perfectly placed geographically to fit in the MIVA.
“My affiliation with Ball State made it easy,” Ball said.
On the one hand, Ball’s playing career at Ball State from 1967-71 gave him connections in the MIVA world. Ball State, Ohio State and Earlham were charter members of the MIVA and had a decent chunk of power in terms of the conference making changes.
On the flip side...
“We were an easy win,” Ball said.
Of course.
A team in its first year of varsity competition would not legitimately compete with these teams. The aforementioned Ball State, Ohio State and Earlham had varsity programs that were already 20 years old, and all had legendary coaches who would eventually be in the MIVA Hall of Fame.
Ball State and Ohio State in particular were giants compared to the newly formed IPFW team.
According to the Fort Wayne News Sentinel, the Cardinals were so far ahead of IPFW, they would have a full 90-practice before coming out to whip IPFW.
“We were lucky to win three or four points in the entire match, not even just in each set,” Ball said.
But Ball had a vision: to make IPFW into a national power in the men’s volleyball world. Not only did he have to deal with his alma mater, but also the men’s volleyball schools on the west coast that perennially dominate the national scene.
A big goal for a first-year program, but IPFW joined the MIVA varsity division, and has been a steady member of the conference ever since.
The 1981 roster featured 12 players. All 12 of them were from Allen County. Because there was high school boys’ volleyball at the time, there was a potential gold mine of players. While a lot of the local talent was lost to Ball State and Ohio State, coach Ball made due.
This group of local players took their lumps early, losing their first eight varsity contests. There were flashes of what could come, however, and they even took a set off the Army team in a tournament in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
But on February 18, 1981, the IPFW men’s volleyball program picked up its first win as a varsity team. It came against a team just down the street: Fort Wayne Bible College (which later realigned and was absorbed by Taylor University, then closed in 2008). It was a 2-1 victory that set everything in motion.
IPFW went on to win 14 matches in its first varsity season, including five matches in MIVA play.
In the early days, recruiting was a challenge. While there was the success of local recruiting from the schools in the Allen County schools systems, recruiting outside of the Fort Wayne area was a tall task. Because of the volleyball success in the west and with the prominent powerhouses in the midwest, IPFW was not a top option.
The Division II status of the school did not help matters much either, as there was only $500 of available scholarship for the entire team.
But in 1982, Cincinnati cut their program and half the team transferred to IPFW and joined the team. From this point forward, IPFW was able to start pulling in recruits from outside Fort Wayne.
In the fall of 1982, Arnie Ball pulled in a recruit that would forever change the trajectory of the program: Loren Gebert.
Gebert eventually became the first All-American in program history, and in his senior season in 1986, he led the team to its first MIVA regular season championship.
“That was not my goal,” Gebert said. “My goal was just to see how good I could get.”
It’s not like Ball had to go out of his way to find Gebert either. He was from New Haven, a short 15-minute drive from campus.
Gebert went overlooked by most colleges because he had only been playing volleyball for about three months. He joined the team at New Haven as a senior, but his natural athleticism and hard-working motor propelled him to the quality of a collegiate athlete.
Not only did he quickly become a fantastic volleyball player, but also did something that no other player in the history of the program has ever done, and may never do again.
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) men’s national team visited Fort Wayne as a part of their international tour in 1983. The Soviets had noticed this young, up-and-coming volleyball program and wanted to have an exhibition match against the Summit City’s best.
By the time Gebert faced off against the Russians, he had been playing for about 12 months and had grown into a 6-foot-3 frame. He was playing middle blocker for the IPFW team since they were undersized. His matchup on the other side of the net was a 6-foot-7 middle, well above average for a middle in that time.
This USSR team looked very different than volleyball teams today.
“They barely ever jumped,” Ball said. “To spike or block. But I think we scored maybe three points against them. Total.”
After a quick three-game match, the Russians wanted to show the 1,000 people in the Gates Center what they had not shown in their match against IPFW: what happens when they jump.
So, the 11-member USSR team was going to scrimmage to show off their skills.
Wait…
Eleven players?
The Russians were a member short for a full six-on-six scrimmage.
Being the best player left available had its perks, as Gebert got to play with the Russians in their scrimmage.
“It was awesome,” Ball said. “And we got a lot of media coverage and people started to realize that we had a volleyball team that could contribute to the men’s volleyball community.”
Gebert got to compete in an offense that was far more experienced than the IPFW team.
“I was hitting off their setter and I was thinking to myself, ‘why can’t I hit like this off of my setter?’” Gebert said. “Still to this day I remember going up to Arnie after that game and giving him a big hug and knowing this was the sport I wanted to play.”
Even despite the political strife between the United States and USSR in the height of the Cold War, the two teams were able to see past that and just interact as humans.
“At that time we had three Latvians on the team,” Gebert said. “And their languages are pretty similar so they could communicate pretty well. They wanted some jeans and jerseys and stuff like that, so we sent them over to Glenbrook to go shopping.”
After the match and the intra-squad scrimmage, the two volleyball teams got the chance to spend some time together in the city, exchanging stories and learning of each other’s cultures.
“It made me think a lot more worldly instead of thinking everyone is just from New Haven, Indiana,” Gebert said.
* * *
Gebert played an integral role on his team, but it could be argued that it was the addition of Jay Golsteyn in the 1986 season that made the IPFW team a pain to play. Now a two-headed monster was on the IPFW side of the court.
In 1986, the Mastodons won six MIVA matches, which was enough to tie for the regular season championship, the first of its kind in the varsity program’s history. They beat Michigan and Notre Dame twice, and Purdue and Ohio State once.
One championship down.
At this point, the IPFW men’s volleyball program had burst onto the scene and would go on to win or share seven of the next nine regular season titles.
Safe to say the experiment to make a national name in the men’s volleyball world would soon become a reality.
~ Feel the Rumble ~