Kinley Hickok didn’t know what to expect as she prepared boys for volleyball tryouts earlier this year.
She was hired a few weeks before the season, and McNary was her first head coaching role. To her surprise, 36 boys showed up ready to play.
Skill ranged from first-timers to well-versed volleyball players. Hickok had her first chance to assess her team.
McNary boys volleyball launched in 2024, after being declared an emerging sport by the Oregon School Activities Association. Hickok now leads them through their second season.
“This is really daunting and scary for me, but I’m really excited about the challenge,” Hickok said.
The team started last year as a dedicated group of intramural volleyball players. Dawn Bailon, a McNary science teacher, noticed their interest and decided to go to the athletic director to form an official team. That’s when boys volleyball was declared an emerging sport. The only difference from girls volleyball is a taller net.
Jayson Ball, a senior and team captain, was thrilled to hear about the program.
“I’d been waiting for quite a while to play high school volleyball, so I was pretty excited,” he said.
The first season was lackluster. By the end, they had played 12 league games with no wins.
But that year laid the team’s framework. Moving into this season, the boys share a newfound camaraderie, Hickok said.
She came into the season hoping to foster a community among the 27 varsity and junior varsity players. From a player’s perspective, Ball recognizes Hickok’s efforts.
“This year, we’ve made goals, and there are expectations for our players to bond. It’s just more focused on bonding,” he said.
Derek Delacruz, a junior and JV captain, agreed.
“The volleyball community is growing, as a whole. We are pretty much like a family now,” he said.
When not practicing or attending study halls, many players play club volleyball in Salem.
“They just love volleyball. They cannot get enough of it,” Hickok said.
Originally from Alaska, this is Hickok’s debut as a head coach. She played volleyball at Corban University and after graduating in 2019 started coaching the Courthouse Fitness Club team.
From her perspective, the team is disadvantaged compared to other teams who’ve spent months training before the season started.
“A lot of these schools either have the same coach that they had last season or they are doing extra stuff – camps, clinics, that sort of thing,” she said.
She said improvements will mostly come during the off-season, when she hopes to put on clinics and camps for local schools at McNary. She will also host open gyms and training sessions.
“We just need to have a lot more structure in place for the off-season,” she said.
And the team shares Hickok’s desire for improvement. At the beginning of the year, when they filled out goal sheets as a team, most of the boys wrote “go to state.” “These boys really want to go to state. We are at a place … where maybe that doesn’t seem possible. But I think it is,” Hickok said.
The team has 15 matches for the season, and was 0-10 in league going into this week.
She wants to win a game first. She also wants to develop court awareness and chemistry among the players.
“I want to get to a place where we feel like a well-oiled machine…we know where the five other people are on the court without having to look…we know exactly how that person is going to serve at us, and how to roll with it,” she said.
As a graduating senior, Ball hopes to see the McNary volleyball culture grow.
“I’d like a culture to be built around volleyball, just like basketball or football, where students from McNary can come to the games, enjoy them, and have fun,” he said.
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