Sunday Chat is a weekly feature appearing in The Blade’s print and digital platforms each Sunday.
Women’s volleyball is having a moment.
The sport is riding a wave of momentum as increased interest has propelled women’s sports forward.
The University of Toledo wants to be along for the ride, which is why athletic director Bryan Blair took considerable interest in the search for a new women’s volleyball coach. The Rockets made progress under previous coach Jason Oliver —- who left for an assistant coaching job in the Pro Volleyball Federation — creating a sense of urgency to capitalize.
For its next leader, UT tapped Ohio State assistant Brian Wright, a Texas native who has coached at the University of Texas and Texas Christian. He came highly recommended by former bosses and players who credited Wright with being a teacher first and having a brilliant volleyball mind.
Wright has been an assistant for 17 seasons, coaching 36 All-Americans and qualifying for 13 NCAA tournaments, including 10 Sweet 16 appearances, eight Elite Eights, six Final Fours, and one national championship (Texas, 2012).
As a club coach, Wright’s teams qualified for the USA Junior Nationals 14 times and won three national qualifiers. He won a silver medal at the 2014 AAU national championships and had three players named to the AAU All-American team. He has served as a head coach and assistant coach for USA Volleyball and National Team Development Programs.
The Blade: What do you think of where Toledo is positioned geographically and how that translates to procuring talent?
Wright: I mean, the number of major cities that are within three-and-a-half hours is absolutely incredible. It’s not something I would have known five years ago, and honestly, even being in Columbus for the last few years, it’s not something I fully knew. But as I started doing research, I was like, all right, how many clubs do I know in Indianapolis? How many clubs do I know in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh and Louisville? You make this circle, and I’m like, holy wow, we can stay within 300 miles. Ninety percent of the team has been within that radius, but we can get a kid from Hawaii, I think we can get kids from Texas. We can still recruit nationally, but we don’t need to spend a lot of time going outside that 300 miles, which is pretty cool.
The Blade: Why did the Toledo job appeal to you?
Wright: I was looking for something where the program needs to continue to grow but is already on its way. There’s already momentum. I called a ton of MAC coaches, and they were all like, that is an amazing job, we don’t know why it doesn’t have 10 banners already. I think when you’re in a conference and you walk into a gym, sometimes you automatically think, how is this place doing so well or why isn’t this place doing better? The first thing I could do was just learn from all the other coaches in the league, and they all said, this is the job.
So then I started doing research and I learned about [Bryan Blair]. I’m reading, watching all of his interviews and listening to his energy. Every job, everything I’ve ever done in my career, I’ve chased being around good people. If you’re around good people, the rest takes care of itself.
I am pumped about what we can do for all of northwest Ohio. If our players invest time, if I invest time, I think the whole area gets better at volleyball. There’s growth potential for attendance. There’s growth potential for people just wanting to find another sport to fall in love with.
The Blade: You’ve coached at the highest level of the sport and achieved a lot. What do you bring to Toledo from those experiences to try to jumpstart this program and get to the top of the MAC?
Wright: I think I’ve been at every extreme. I have coached an 11 and under third team. I’ve coached 15s and 16s for a really long time. I’ve coached a ton of different USA Volleyball teams. And I’ve coached at some of the best conferences, some of the best programs, and got to coach All-Americans and future Olympians. There’s nowhere on that spectrum that I haven’t been at some point. So I feel like the volleyball piece is easy.
You walk in, you figure out where you are, you figure out how to get a little bit better. Right now, when I talk to everybody in the back, I don’t know that it’s a league that rewards just getting more talent. That’s not enough. I think you have to get more consistent. I think anybody can beat anybody on a given night. And the cool thing is, having just come from the Big Ten, it’s the exact same. It’s a league where, top to bottom, if you don’t show up, you’re going to get upset.
I’ve been teaching consistency for the last five years. I’m going to walk in and say, the No. 1 thing we have to work on is being consistently great every day, and the rest will take care of itself.
The Blade: How have the transfer portal and NIL affected women’s volleyball?
Wright: It’s drastic. I think it’s as drastic as any other sport. It’s all relative in terms of how much money. But recruiting at the highest levels right now has been more money-based than it has been mission-based, trying to sell cultures and values and growth and getting you to where you want to be.
One of the things that was most impressive to me when I was interviewing for this job was that only one person went into the portal when the program was going through a search. That automatically says something about why they chose to come here in the first place. It tells me something about the chemistry. It tells me something about the previous assistants and how well they were doing to maintain things. As I get to know the girls, there’s a type that does really well here. It’s people who want to be really successful, not just on the court but also in the classroom. I mean, half of this team is going into the medical field. Half this team is in business. There are a couple teachers, a couple engineers.
When you want to be great at volleyball, a lot of schools are going to tell you, you can’t be a nurse, you can’t go to medical school, you can’t do all these things. Here, we can. I don’t think you turn excellence on and off. So if you want to be great in the classroom, be great on the court.
The Blade: Next season, do you think the expectations should be high? Can there be an immediate jump up the MAC standings?
Wright: I think the expectation should be high just because of the players that are already here. I don’t think we have to go out and buy a bunch of players to have high expectations. I want to walk in and talk to the team about what it’s going to take to win a championship with the roster that’s already here.
I think it’s a great opportunity. With volleyball switching to the equivalency model, it’s no longer just, you’re on scholarship, you’re not on scholarship. There’s some creativity that can come with that in terms of building a roster. If we raise money with NIL and do those things, if the Ohio law goes through, if the House case goes through, we’re actually going to be able to help give that NIL money directly instead of just hoping the community does it for us. That’s going to give us some opportunities.
We’ve got people that want to be in business. They want to be in marketing. Some of them want to be in jobs in fan engagement. Maybe we can get them involved with people here in the athletic department and start doing things to grow the sport and find some NIL money, and it becomes an internship for them. It’s a win-win-win of developing them.
If I go out and just change the roster and buy players, I don’t see that being sustainable. That takes a lot of money year after year after year. That’s not a foundation-building thing that I see in this position. There’s a really good culture already here. This isn’t a rebuild. It’s not a start-over. It’s not a massive change. It’s just an add-on. We need 20 percent more to get to the next level. But we don’t need this major shift in any one thing that they’ve been doing.
The Blade: Do you already hate Bowling Green?
Wright: [Laughs] I’m told I’m supposed to. It’s an interesting time in the volleyball world because they’ve had their success in the sport. But a big part of that success was Danijela [Tomic], and she’s moving on to Cincinnati. I think they’ll continue to have some stability, but that also gives us, hopefully, an opportunity to capture it.
First Published January 12, 2025, 2:00 p.m.
