10 Questions with Oscar "Digger" Graybill Part 1

Good morning and welcome to the volleyball. How are you today? Todd? Exciting day. Back at it,

Davis. Back in the cave. And it's a special one today. We have a special guest, my mentor,

my first boss, the guy who hired me to begin this whole volleyball coaching journey. So cool.

Oscar Digger Grayball. How cool is that name? Digger Grayball. Is that a volleyball name?

The coolest name there is. Yeah. Digger, welcome. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.

Thank you. Davis. I want to give you a little background. So so Digger grew up in Manhattan Beach.

Play Beach player at Manhattan Beach came down to lovely San Diego State University. My

Alma Mater played on the team there. Okay. And then started teaching at Hoover High School. And

that's where he hired me back in 1981. Okay. So we coached Hoover High. Then he went to

Grossmont College and coach the women there. Then he went and coach the men at UCSD. And I

assisted him there for a couple years. Looking back, that was, I can't believe how little I knew

coaching men's volleyball back then, Digger, when I looked back. And so then from UCSD, Digger moved

this family up to Walla Walla, Washington. And then he was teaching and coaching volleyball there

for many years at the high school level. So he bounced around a bunch. Digger is so great having you

on the pod. It's one of the things that I've been wanting to do for a long time. So I'm fired up.

Thanks for joining us. Well, thanks, Todd. You know, you have turned into one of my mentors as well

as I'm raising a family of two kids teaching full time, doing workshops, various kinds of things. Okay.

So I'm coaching my team. Okay. Gosh, how about this drill? I better call Todd. It goes, yeah,

I was at the national conference that I was talking and so on. So then you might want to try this.

So, my gosh, what a source. So I appreciate your contributions towards my coaching and your

enduring friendship. I appreciate it. Oh, it's all it's been fun. Well, speaking of mentors,

I want to start out with kind of thinking of that idea of mentorship. And we shared a common

mentor. When I first got to Hoover in 1981, there was a teacher coach there by the name of how

mature of it. How became a mentor for both of us. How passed away? Probably it's been about

five years or so now. Davis, you can look up on my bulletin board and you can see his obituary is

up on my bulletin board. So digger, I want you to talk a little. So we're going to start by talking

a little bit about how, because when we talk about when I think about the essence of great coaches,

I get if I think of great coaches, how mature of its picture is right there. So what made

house so special? Well, and as I start here, I just wanted to remind you and remind myself that

if you're too busy to reflect, you're too busy to improve. So I look at this session as a way for

me to reflect on what I've done and volleyball and how it connects all together. And I know you're

going to ask me some questions that I just know that they're going to kind of overlap kind of like,

you know, if there's 10 questions, 10 Venn diagrams, you know, and so the ob will sort of go back

and forth. And also, I've made kind of a few notes here. So if I look off to the side a little bit,

don't think that I'm dissing you. I just want to be sure. And then also, I always like to

in conversations, if I have the chance, and I try to make the chance to take some notes myself,

you know, that I'm listening and things that jump out out of me that I can come back to.

So how, oh my gosh, I really look at how it's kind of a father figure for me. Now as I look back on it,

I'm 25 years old, you know, I've got the wire glasses, I got the long hair, I got the Guatemalan shirt,

you know, I coach basketball. And then, you know, the first couple of games with how much of it's,

oh my gosh, this guy's for real, he's authentic. And kind of like three words sum up, I mean,

he really showed me how to live and lead a life of enthusiasm, intelligence and compassion,

both as a teacher and as a class and as a coach. And those things, you know, it's with reflection

that you realize, oh my gosh, he really kind of taught me a lot. And there are like, you know,

great quotes that you probably remember taught as well, you know, how you treat people is more

important than winning and losing. What? You know, we're supposed to like, you know, not be

concerned about winning, how I like to win. And he's a very gentle, nice guy, but I can many opportunities

of me being his assistant basketball coach on the JB coach and being on the bench with them,

and him yelling loudly at the referees. I mean, you know, but by the same token, nothing offensive,

but just being passionate about what he's doing. Another quote, keep your heads up, go and shake

their hands, shake the coach's hands, shake the referee hands. What? You know, that that was just

as important as playing the game in the opposing team's locker room, leave it better than what we found.

What? I thought we're coach basketball. So all of this stuff, all of a sudden,

it begins, it begins to flow and wrap around me and see that the athletes that he had, these

inner, inner city kids were just totally buying into it. Why? Because he was authentic and he cared,

you know, and so that kind of, you know, stayed with me. And so many things that he introduced me to,

practice plants. He would, he helped run the John Wooden camps up at UCLA. And so he had this

practice form a minute by minute. I'm still doing that today. You know, I'm not, I'm not a coach,

anybody in my workshop and stuff. It's just like minute by minute. This is what we're doing.

Pre-practice. What are we doing? Pre-practice when the kids show up? Okay. And they're just in the gym.

You let them do whatever or is there some sort of directions there? Pre-match. He would always go

in on the chalkboard. He would write our goals. He would have a few quotes. I did that all through

all through my career. It's how Mitch or Mitch, you know, and letting the kids know this is what we're

about. This is our big picture. This is our small picture of, you know, the team we're playing.

Post-match. What do you do post-match? I'm just going to go get dressed. And I realized, oh no,

there's a ritual. There's a routine for post-match that all the kids know about. And a phrase I like

to say is with structure, structure gives you freedom and gives you success. Kids know what to expect.

So those kinds of things, you know, have stayed with me all the way through.

What a great list. That gives Davis a little picture there of how, why he resonates with us today,

you know, some 40, 40, 50 years later. So great stuff. We have 10 questions for digger and we're

going to move. Davis, you're on number two. And you were kind of starting to get into this a

little bit, but you're evolution throughout these various coaching gigs, right? Sounds like

you had just a wealth of really cool varied different experiences. Could you touch on sort of

how the different ones made you grow and evolve over the years? Yeah, I can. Good question.

Thanks. Well, my three years at Hoover, I went to Hoover, I was going to coach Junior

Varsity basketball and that's where Todd, he helped coach my JB volleyball team, but at the same

time kind of leaked over to doing the basketball as well. But then I transitioned and because at Hoover,

there was a woman who I kind of almost feel kind of bad. I mean, Mary McCarty, she was old school

knew nothing really. I mean, this is the transition of because I started coaching before women,

we're getting NC two-way recognition to play volleyball. So she was just old school, you know,

throw the balls out, do a little volleyball, okay? And my assistant principal realized that,

you know, I had experience in skills and coaching. So she pushed the issues and Mary, it's been

nice, but you're done. So I took over there for three years and, you know, and so I look at that

as kind of a lump and then of the gross amount as well. Because I'm teaching full-time,

so, you know, you're coaching as well. And during that time, starting my evolution, I started

having the opportunity to coach at Al Skates Summer Volleyball Camps in Southern California,

and that's where I got contact with, you know, many top coaches, both collegiate in high school.

So that was kind of a growing time for me because I was a beach volleyball player. Yes, I played

indoor at San Diego State, but I didn't learn everything about teaching or coaching by my

participation on the team. So all of a sudden, I'm seeing how things were organized and the kind

of level of players that were involved with. So when I started at Hoover, I had, you know, strong

skills. I was, you know, a NCAA All-Star in 1972. And so I had those skills, but I was raised,

and I think about, you know, people say you teach the way you were taught, you coach the way

you were coached. And so I think about the kinds of things that I did at San Diego State.

Jack Han was a great coach, but it was so much single contact drills, okay? You know,

hitting balls and serving and those kinds of things, but not a real emphasis on the idea of

multiple contacts and beyond a single context. And so I was just mainly doing, you know, four,

two offense and a five one when I had a good setter. But early on, one of the things that I did,

and this was kind of something I was known for, that is, okay, so I want my Hoover kids to understand

good volleyball. I mean, these are kids who don't play club volleyball on those days. No, nobody's

club volleyball. I had one really good player, Annabelle Bermuda, and she would go down to the

Muni Gym and play against adults. And so she was kind of like my setter, so I've kind of made

everything go around her. But the rest of the players, great kids, but they just not exposed good

volleyball. So how can I expose it to them? Why don't I run a tournament, okay? So I ran the

Cardinal Classic. It was sponsored by Second Soul. I don't think Second Soul is still around.

No, I don't know. Yeah, anyway, I made a t-shirts and everything. All of a sudden, I invited

it down top team some L.A. In fact, Gaur came down. I don't know if you know back in the day.

Ryan Jim Marrow. Yeah, yeah. So all of a sudden, I'm really having these great players come down

and my team was able to play against them. So that was kind of a start of something that I would

recommend. And when I'm talking all high school, but Davis, you are involved with club and Todd,

you're involved club. So tell me where things would overlap or not overlap or not apply,

because I'm thinking about, you know, you have kids, you're a teacher on campus, or even if you're

on a campus, you're still the one who has contact with them. So that's something that was fun.

And then I moved over to Grossmont, and there was an opening there. So I coached there two years

and I've taken them to the state championship and community college. But I was still single

kind of contact, kind of guy. Because, you know, I'm triple A. So I'm going to hit balls at you.

I'm sure to stop you. So we're fighting to get to the point. And maybe there's something

better than do in your time than just always hitting the ball and then reflecting on our matches.

And what are we doing? Well, what are we not doing? Well, well, we're not calling out free balls.

We're not making that those transitions. All of a sudden, you know, because you're in

interested coach, you start to make those those changes. So from those experiences, Hoover and

Grossmont, I think that I became more authentic and more intentional with fewer assumptions

about my players and teams attitudes, beliefs, skills, and language, all of which you can

just assume when I say, stop when the ball is hit. What does stop me? Move when the ball is hit.

You know, we just assume that these simple phrases, kids understand. And there's a gap there

that we are saying one thing, you know, it's like establishing the vocabulary. What do you mean?

What does this mean? What I say this when we do this, when we do this drill, those kinds of

things. So I became more intentional in their in their scales and then also in their beliefs.

You know, I have a fellow coaches who are just really aggressive and they're great individual

players on the beach and stuff and they start coaching the same. My players don't want it.

They don't want it. They kind of want it like me. Okay. And so how do you create that desire

to work hard and be on a team and make those sacrifices? Because what are their beliefs?

My belief is I just want to have fun. Well, what's fun? How do we define fun? You know,

these kinds of things that I think at all levels, I mean, why are we doing this?

So that that was sort of my transition to then go to UCSD. Questions or comments?

Coaches? No, it's a profound stuff. You can see that. Now, UCSD, what was the biggest difference

there? Because I look that's when I look back and I see the level of volleyball there. We were

coaching, you know, Hoover High. You know, I was coaching Hoover High and coaching high school

girls who never played club and all of a sudden were coaching against Marv Numpy and I felt like

I had no idea what I was doing. No, you tell me. Oh, hey, I was the same way because, you know,

I made, I made some notes here, you know, about that. And then one of the first things that I say

is I grew in my knowledge and my application of offense and defense because oh my gosh, I mean,

our definitely was such a great guy. He's a Pepperdine and I'm doing this scheduling.

They go, oh, day, God, you're doing some fun stuff down there. We love to play, but don't take

it the wrong day, but when we come down and we beat you three straight, we need to work out in

the GM afterwards. So because you just know we're going to crush you, you know, but we still need

practice. And so he was just gentle that way, but he was like, those were the old days for

people that don't remember those real days before rally scoring. Oh, man. So, you know, you

could play games to 15. No, but you have marathon matches. If it were, if it was competitive,

long, yes, but if it wasn't competitive, you could get out of it. You could be out of there

quick, right? You know, they could go back and get a server on a run. It would be like, you know,

15 points, he was like 15, 3, 15, 5, 15, 6, you know, those matches can be over in

with 40 minutes, you know, division one, men's volleyball matches, you know, yeah, different.

And then so then the transition from there, the one that interests me probably the most is

the transition back to high school. So when you look at, when you look at yourself starting at

Hoover and then moving to Walla Walla after doing college volleyball, then moving back to high

school volleyball, because you had a program there at Walla Walla and I know that. But when you

look at yourself there going, how I kind of that growth there when you got to Walla Walla.

Yeah. Well, and I was going to say with with UCSD that ties into your question, Todd, is it really

became clear that being a head coach and really at the high school, at the top high schools or

the colleges, there's more off the courts stuff you need to do, okay? Scheduling will of course,

okay? Recruiting, I'm going up to Orange County to recruit players, okay? It's 18 hours a day.

I'm teaching full time and then driving up to Tuscan or a Newport Harbor, you know, to look at

these players. And so those experiences and even at gross, but all of a sudden, you know, you are a

manager as much as anything else. And I can understand, maybe your situation, Todd, I mean, you,

you have been the head coach for so long, but now you're, you're, turn those duties over to

somebody else and, of course, you can just come and just, we have just coach volleyball, you know,

because otherwise you get swallowed up with everything else and you got the parents, you know,

so, you know, everything ends up going. So, yeah, so beyond the idea of UCSD, which was a great

opportunity for me and I had some successes there, even though we were Division 3 all the way through.

So it's fun to see now that everything's to Division 1 now at UC San Diego. So, yeah, so I took

the family, we left San Diego and people always say, you left San Diego, so why did you leave San Diego?

Well, because we came to Fort House, you know, we didn't come for money and so we had to move,

had to move to Walla Walla. My brother had moved here earlier, so we came up here and so I got

hired to coach the volleyball team and so that was my start there, but to build a program, okay?

And I was lucky enough at Walla Walla to attract the best athletes. We're in Southeastern Washington

and club volleyball doesn't happen in Walla Walla, plus our rule is that the high school coaches

cannot coach out of season with your same athletes. So when you have a town of 55,000, I can't

really do anything. And so it's only now that they've started to have club volleyball. So,

so I got the best athletes from our school and turns out that I had a couple become all state

and they never played club at all. So I kind of go a nice job coach, you know, to coach them up

that they were good enough to be selected all state because they were really good athletes too,

okay? They were fun to coach, but and I did the kind of the same thing there. Well,

let's run a tournament. So I ran the Northwest volleyball invitational tournament and I,

this is like, you know, the point where I could go and get all the addresses, all the top college

coaches in the Northwest. And I send information to them so they would come and look. And then,

I ran the tournament for Coshpobby. It's probably 10 years or so. Yeah, a couple of times.

Monivista came up. Yeah, and I think the bishops too. Yeah, yeah. So we end up, you know, top teams

would come and that's what I want to. I want my freshman girls be calling lines, which are

terrifying for them, but for them to see the best volleyball. So the kind of the same thing I did

at Hoover, I did there as well to create that culture that were about excellent, excellent volleyball.

Okay? And so that was my introduction there and I'm going to kind of move on or the next question.

Yeah, yeah, let's, yeah, let's move on because that's that's great. I'm going to get into

I mean, these overlaps. So I still have a lot of things to say. Yeah, there's going to be a bunch of

stuff. But yeah, I want to talk a little bit about what you're doing now because the cool thing for

me is we put digger on our huddle account. Okay. Awesome. At bishops. So he would follow us and watch

that. And then I would talk to him, okay, what do you see? He's like, well, look at number, you know,

number 15. I noticed this. And so, but so you're watching volleyball. And now there's so much

volleyball on compared to in the past. I mean, you know, in the old days, we used to be so happy if

we could get any volleyball on TV. And now you could find a bunch of volleyball. My question to you

is more from a from a coach's eye perspective. Is it when you watch volleyball? Where do your

eyes go? Do you watch it like a fan or, you know, that, you know, 30, 40 years of coaching you had?

So now this is where my eyes go. Where do your eyes go when you first start watching volleyball?

Well, yeah. Where do my eyes go? Is really this a blessing in a curse that I was a long time coach

watching volleyball? Because it's like the announcer's bugging me. And I've had to like turn them off

and just say, I, you know, you're not telling me anything new. You're just kind of feeling my, you

know, I want to see what's happening. Okay. So between games, I mean, was there a change in your

rotation? And if they didn't change, I mean, those things that we coach is kind of considered. I mean,

the first game is over and all of a sudden get out the court with it. They were they spun the

dialier a little bit. So what's happening? That's something that that I kind of take a look at. I

don't get enough of that of that input. And as I did with Huddle, I mean, I look at a passing

platform and your philosophy, you know, kind of reigns as I'm looking at, too, as your, your

players are passing. And then also they're just a positioning all the way through. I

I'm a big, big believer in that you need to play your guts out, you know, every single play. And

so you should be doing that. And that between contacts, you know, I don't know the percentage of

time that you guys probably have probably no percentage of time that you're not touching the ball.

I mean, that's what volleyball is. It's between the contacts. Okay. And then we can win matches

even if we don't have good hitters, but between contacts. And, and so I'll look and see one

player kind of like, okay, I'm kind of covering. No, you're not, but you're not down low. You're

not assuming that the ball is going to come back to, you know, if that old adage, you know,

the ball will find you and they kind of lose, lose sight of that. So I look at that and, you know,

the center and their hitting choices. You know, who are they setting, why are they setting,

looking across the net? I mean, those kinds of things that that would be what I think we coaches

look at would be positioning because we know that that's all important. Okay. And then who you're

setting is really important. Okay. And I'm kind of a basketball fan of two. So I was watching

Gonzaga lose their, their game. And it's like, who is deciding who's going to shoot the ball?

Yes, it should be kind of a, you know, everybody's equal, but there's times where not everybody

equal and say the thing with the ball ball. I mean, who are you setting? Yeah, 1616. She put five balls

away. So, so those kinds of things, you know, team things as well as the mental part of the game.

Where are you going? What are you doing? Good stuff. I like it. So a lot of coaches kind of focus

on the difference between men's and women's volleyball. And you've got a bunch of experience with

both sides of it. What is your take on the differences, similarities? Like, where do you see

as far as gender differences in the sport? Yeah. I would be in the camp that coaching is coaching

that as long as you are communicating and the players know your expectations that that's important.

But with that said, you I need to know your audience. You know, it's like a writer. Who am I writing to?

Who am I coaching to? And if I know that's a very sensitive, you know, girl that anytime I tell her

new, even neutral things, she takes it as something that is, you know, a criticism. But that can

be true of males as well. So, so what are we dealing with? Because even at UCSD, I have some

sensitive guys. Oh, okay. So I'm going to tell you that I want you to do this when they go up

and hit. I want you to, you know, look to that outside hand and we're going to work on that over

and over again. Yeah, coach, yeah, coach, yeah, coach, excuse me. It wasn't a question. So there

needs to be some of that at times, both for males and females. But probably the biggest challenge I

had that can drive one out of coaching was the parents at the high school level. I'm coaching

girls. They are the ones that can criticize you the most. And I don't know if you've had that

contact time level. Yeah, I'm just kidding. Yes, I absolutely. No, it's a huge issue.