Upon Further Review

Someone please e-mail me and tell me what more a coach has to do to win the Southern Valley DoesStink’s coach of the year award in anything. Seriously, what are we dealing with here?

Let’s just get this out of the way right now: Lynn Alexander, coach for the Fort Defiance volleyball team, won this year’s Coach of the Year award. Good on her because Alexander is very deserving. Very deserving, that is, if Waynesboro coach Lori Aleshire doesn’t completely turn her team around.

Too bad, Aleshire did.

And a team that couldn’t win a district match last season if ‘W’s were on e-Bay suddenly found itself in a three-way tie for first at the end of the Southern Valley’s regular season. First. Place. Tie.

Am I missing something here? What? Was going from not winning a district match in 2007 to the Region III tournament in 2008 not enough to convince the rest of the coaches in the district that, well, yeah, Aleshire did a bang up job turning that team around. And, again, e-mail me if I’m missing something here, isn’t that what any Coach of the Year award should be all about?

Right? Right. So what’s the deal then?

Don’t the coaches vote on this? Shouldn’t these other coaches realize the impact this second season under Aleshire had on this program? They should because with two more seasons like 2007, this program spirals into abyss right next to football and, as we all know, rebuilding any sports program takes some time. (Don’t worry, Waynesboro football fans, yours is coming real soon.)

Instead, however, Aleshire stopped the bleeding and put this team right back to where it belongs. I’m not exaggerating when I say the 2008 turnaround saved the Little Giants volleyball program. Saved. It. And that’s all on Aleshire.

Aleshire was saddled with one of the area’s most successful public-school volleyball programs (scratch that, let’s call it THE most successful) just as it lost all of its veteran talent. During the span of two full seasons, she returned this team back to where it belongs — on top and back in region play.

She got this team playing the right way at the right time. A team that had Stuarts Draft coach Kami Meeteer scratching her head when the Giants beat the Cougars in their second meeting. Admitting that the Little Giants team she saw during the second go-around through the district schedule did not resemble the team her Cougars faced in the first meeting.

Aleshire’s team fought back from being down 0-2 in a must-win game against Fort Defiance to win it 3-2.

Repeat: Down. 0. 2.

Repeat: Won. It. 3. 2.

Though snubs for turning teams around should be nothing new to Giantdom. You watched in awe as Secrett Stubblefield, the coach that finally led your girls basketball team to the state championship game, some how, some way, did not get the SVD Coach of the Year nod.

Of course, plenty of old-school, do-as-I-want voices let their opinions on the matter fly. Stubblefield was unorthodox, they said. Stubblefield was an embarrassment, they whined. Of course, my favorite, they blamed the fact of her not being coach of the year because she did not attend the district meeting. (Nice message to send to the kids on that one, by the way.)

Aleshire is as orthodox as they come, the kind of coach you pray your program gets once legends like Candace Kimmett and Pat Austin hang up the clipboards. The kind of coach who takes pride in what soon will be “Her” program much like it was Kimmett’s and Austin’s when she was setting balls for a state championship team under that duo.

No doubt, Aleshire isn’t bothered one bit by this snub. She’s had other things to worry about, you know, like a Region III tournament which the Giants were ousted from Tuesday. But that regional berth seemed unfathomable last season but, thanks to her, became a reality. Fans noticed. The media noticed and the players noticed.

Too bad the other coaches didn’t notice.