When Amber Dunn quit her full-time job as a social worker in Wisconsin to pursue a career as a volleyball coach, she didn't realize how quickly she'd need to draw on her counseling skills again.
Willing to drop her career in 2013 for a $4,500 assistant coach stipend, Dunn spent two years coaching under Wisconsin-Stevens Point's Abbey Sutherland, whom she speaks of with a sort of reverence. After back-to-back national semi-final appearances, Sutherland pushed Dunn to start searching for a position as a head coach, even though she didn't feel ready for such a move.
It wasn't until Dunn visited Geneseo's campus last July that she found a place she could leave home for. Before the interview, she spent hours researching the history of Geneseo's volleyball program in the archives of their game stories. But she couldn't really have known what the program had been through, or what it would go through in just a few short months.
When Geneseo had its season cancelled in 2012 due to an unforeseeable hazing incident, it reminded every coach of the vulnerabilities college athletes and coaches are prone to. Those involved in the incident have since left, but four years later the perception of the program Dunn has inherited lingers: "When I came in in August my juniors told me they had trouble getting an apartment. When landlords found out they play for the volleyball team, they'd say, 'Oh, we know what you guys did. You can't live here.'" Dunn's mission at Geneseo is to alter that perception one day at a time.
The mission began in earnest in January when two Geneseo athletes, Kelsey Annese (women's basketball) and Matthew Hutchinson (men's hockey), were killed in a double murder-suicide. Dunn was forced to draw on her skills as a social worker when her teary-eyed players would come to her in search of an empathetic ear. It forced her to get to know her players in an intimate way, and ironically, solidified her vision for Geneseo Volleyball:
Ryan Maloney: With the two athletes who passed away at Geneseo this year, how has that affected you and your team?
Amber Dunn: It's been really tough. They've done a really good job here of putting the right resources in place for students, but I think Geneseo will be dealing with the effects of that for a very long time. Our team really struggled with it. Our team is close with the women's basketball team, and there were a few players who were really close with Kelsey. A couple things have come from it, though. For us, I've been forced to get to know our players on a personal level.
RM: What does that mean? That it's forced you to get to know your players?
Dunn: I think as a head coach you can have that wall between you and your athletes. I knew them, but I didn't know them on a personal level. I didn't recruit them, so I don't know mom and dad as well. I knew them for face value. But with what's happened, it wasn't uncommon where a player would come into my office and just break down. There was a player who just came in and fell to her knees and cried. I sat down on the floor with her and hugged her, and just let her cry. That was a big thing for me, I was able to get to know them on that personal level where they feel comfortable enough to come and sit in my office, or sit at a basketball game together as a group, trying to work through something really difficult. I was there to support them and be available as a resource. If that situation didn't happen, I probably wouldn't have gotten to know them.
RM: Is that something that comes naturally to you? Because, for me, dealing with those emotions in my players doesn't come easily. Sometimes I just don't know what to do.
Dunn: I think my background in social work helps with compassion. But, for instance, if a player is emotional over her playing time, sometimes self-soothing is a big piece and you need to let her work through that. But that situation, in comparison with the tragic incident that happened at Geneseo, that's very different. In that moment I knew they needed someone. I knew I needed to be that person, because mom and dad aren't here. We had to stick together, we had to be close. I had to hug them, and I'm not a big hugger. I've learned as much about myself as I have about them. It's been a great experience for me.RM: Do people still ask you about when Geneseo had their season cancelled a few years ago? That might be another emotional piece you've had to deal with.
Dunn: People remember it. It gets brought up maybe with one out of every ten recruits. I think in terms of people saying, "No, my kid can't come to Geneseo," I don't think that happens. I make it really clear in the beginning of my recruiting conversations what my vision is for the program, where we're headed, what my expectations are, and what the role of the player is. It was a really tough situation; no coach could have predicted that that was going to go on. But for me, I feel like I have a clear enough vision for the program and where we're going, and the players know that that's not something that can happen. I'm very clear about that. I'm looking for players who fit into that vision, and I'm hoping we're going to get enough good media that when you Google "Geneseo Volleyball", that's not going to come up.
RM: Honestly, I don't even think about it anymore -- it wasn't even going to be one of my questions for you. When it happened I think it made every coach stop and think if that could have happened to them, too.
Dunn: And I can only imagine what's it's like to come back from that. When I came in in August my juniors told me they had trouble getting an apartment. When landlords found out they play for the volleyball team, they'd say, "Oh, we know what you guys did. You can't live here."
RM: Wow. That's pretty crazy.
Dunn: And that piece for me is the biggest thing. Changing the vision of the program, and changing how people view volleyball here at Geneseo. Being a smaller community I think that's a really important piece. I think it starts with camps, getting people involved and engaged with the program. It's unfortunate that that's the way it panned out, but you certainly hope that one day at a time that vision changes.
RM: When you're talking about vision, in your mind when you go to bed at night, what's your vision for Geneseo Volleyball?
Dunn: I think the biggest piece for me is the full package. The full package for me is first having a strong academic student, and starting to find players who are better than my best player, but not sacrificing our character values and our core values for the program. Attitude, effort, accountability, energy, willing to compete, willing to help the program grow. Being willing to sacrifice spare time. Having that commitment to the program is really important to me. Having kids who are on the same page with me, who want to compete in the conference, who want to win conference championships, who want to go to NCAA's. I think you have to think about that every time you walk in the gym.
RM: You didn't know that much about New York a year ago, but you did happen to land in a very good place in terms of an athletics program.
Dunn: Sure did.
RM: Can you tell me what the conversation was like when you got hired? What were they looking for in their head coach?
Dunn: Obviously my background and resume was a big grab, but I was very clear on what my expectations were and what my vision was. I didn't necessarily want to leave Stevens Point, so for me the interview process was a little bit flipped. If I was going to leave Wisconsin, I wanted to have free reign to do what I'd like to do. The department here was one hundred percent on board with that. I do come from a different region where volleyball is a powerhouse. The area is surrounded by great teams every year. You don't have to go looking for ranked teams to play. It's right there. Now I have to re-market (myself) and figure things out again. What clubs are the powerhouses here? Where's the higher level volleyball? Where can I find a diamond in the rough? I think the biggest piece is that I'm constantly re-establishing myself. I didn't have to do that in Wisconsin. I was recruited by a lot of schools. I was in camps, and clubs. Everybody knew who I was. It's been a very different experience. I'm not used to having to constantly introduce myself to people. And at Stevens Point I didn't have to be the face of the program, but here I'm having to establish the vision for the program.
RM: Right.
Dunn: So changing that vision, and changing that culture, and showing that hard black-and-white line that says, "This is where we're headed. You can either be on board with that, or not."
RM: The first time I met you, you said something that really struck me. You said that out in the mid-west if you play volleyball you're cool. Here, if you play volleyball, you just play volleyball. But there volleyball is cool. Can you tell me about the difference between the two?
Dunn: One of the biggest things I've been able to piece together is that in Wisconsin you have volleyball, football, and soccer in the fall. You really only have those sports that are big. Here, when you talk about women's sports, you add lacrosse and field hockey. Those aren't sports in the mid-west. Until I came to New York I had no idea how those sports even worked. You're not competing with those coaches for athletes, so for high school students in the fall they have two options: you can play volleyball or you can play soccer. That's it. And volleyball being that strong powerhouse, it gets competitive out there. It's competitive here too, but in the mid-west you don't have to go looking for it. Volleyball gets mixed with all the other sports out here. It's not as... I'm trying to find the word for it...
RM: There's not as much talent to go around.
Dunn: Right. There, it's soccer or volleyball. Here, there are still some areas where volleyball is a winter sport. Some schools can't field enough players in the fall because they need to pick between more sports.
RM: Along the same line, is there anything that you bring from having coached in the mid-west that maybe a coach here wouldn't know, or might not be able to appreciate?
Dunn: I think every coach has something great to offer. There's plenty of things I've learned from coaches in the SUNYAC this year. But there's also a big difference in recruiting. In Wisconsin, you'd drive three or four hours to Minneapolis. You can go two-and-a-half hours to Milwaukee. You can go three hours to Chicago. But a lot of times I'd be seeing a lot of the same teams competing at those big tournaments. Here at Geneseo, Boston is five hours from here, Hartford was five or six hours. D.C. is five hours. That's a good recruiting range. You can see so much more (variety) here.RM: You brought up camps a couple times. Can you tell me what your vision is with running camps and how it relates to your recruiting?
Dunn: I think camps are a really big thing. Two reasons: I love camps, and I love to work with the youth. I love to be able to introduce new drills and new concepts to kids. That's really important to be able to grow the world of volleyball. You have to be involved with the youth. Just this Sunday we had our Little Knights camp. It's good for our players too because they need to be able to teach the game. The other big piece is that it's another way for me to learn about kids. It's even bigger for me, because I'm still figuring out New York. I wanted to go watch a team at Oneonta High School. I was thinking Oneonta is in Buffalo! (laughs). Oneonta is east of Syracuse. I had no idea. It's things as simple as that.
RM: In talking to you at the end of the season at SUNYAC's, it seemed to be the first time you didn't have a lot of success as a coach. What have you learned in your first year at Geneseo?
Dunn: Success comes in different packages. I had a winning program in high school, I had a winning program in college, I had a winning program as a coach at Viterbo, and I had a winning program at Stevens Point. Being young, everything you hear is, "win, win, win." If you don't win, you lose your job. That's not necessarily always hard truth. I think Geneseo absolutely started having success. When I talked to you at SUNYAC's, I only knew my girls as volleyball players. I knew nothing about them personally. Success does come in small packages. Every head coach wants to win when they take a new job. But the reality is that it takes time. It is hard, because it's easy to think that if you didn't make it to SUNYAC's, or you didn't make it to the NCAA tournament, you're not good enough. I don't think that's true at all.
When recruits come to campus now our players are talking about our character values. When they're looking at recruits' Snapchats or Facebooks they'll say, "Coach, I really think she's really all about our core values, I really like her," or vice versa, "Hey, you know I saw you posted a picture. I don't know if that's what coach talks about with our values." The players do that on their own based on the things we talk about and the legacy they want to leave behind.
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