YOUNGSTOWN
Since Youngstown State entered the Horizon League in 2001, the school has boosted the volleyball program by adding nearly $125,000 in volleyball scholarships, $9,000 in operating funds and $3,500 for recruiting.
In 2005-06, YSU added a full-time assistant coach. In 2006, the school renovated the locker room. In 2009, it replaced the court in Beeghly Center.
And in 2010, the Penguins went 2-27 with an 0-16 record in the conference — their fourth winless season over the last decade and their first since 2005. Only one of the 16 losses went five sets and 12 were 3-0 losses.
“Of all our programs, including basketball, this program has had the biggest competitive challenge since entering the league,” said YSU athletic director Ron Strollo.
The previous coach, Joe Bonner, was fired after going 47-100 in five seasons, including 15-47 in the Horizon. The Penguins hired his replacement, Chad Esposito, in December, 2009. He left almost immediately, returning to his family in Charlotte, N.C., which wasn’t exactly a vote of confidence for the program.
So YSU turned to Krista Burrows, a former four-year starter at Auburn who was coming off a successful six-year run at Walsh University. She knew the challenges when she took the job and also knew that, while facilities help, YSU had bigger issues.
“Let’s get real — it has nothing to do with facilities,” she said of the team’s struggles. “It doesn’t matter what facility we’re in.
“We’ve got to get better in the gym and it doesn’t matter what gym we’re in.”
Volleyball has a lot of the same challenges as men’s basketball — a poor recruiting area (no team in the tri-county area has won a state title and only one, Jackson-Milton in 1989, has made it to the state final), no recent success (arguably no YSU sport faced a bigger step up from the Mid-Continent Conference) and significant recruiting competition (Ohio is dominated by Mid-American Conference schools and YSU lags far behind Horizon-member Cleveland State in volleyball).
The difference is, men’s basketball has Butler. And Butler doesn’t help the volleyball team.
“Butler at least helps kids know what conference we’re in,” said Burrows, who was an assistant at Cleveland State when Vikings coach Chuck Voss was starting to turn around the program. “Our goal is to start taking some of those kids that are going to MAC schools. That’s how we get better.
“Cleveland State got there in 2000. They’re 10 years ahead of where we’re at.”
YSU plans to add a graduate assistant and further upgrade the offices and locker rooms over the next few years, but Burrows knows there’s only so much the school can do. For now, she’s placing a bigger emphasis on academics — “That translates to the court,” she said — and hopes to field a .500 team by 2012.
“You’re not going to turn a program around in one year,” she said. “It’s a progressive thing.
“We’re just getting better every day in the gym and trying to make some strides every year. By the 2012, I think we’ll really try to make that move.”
