Up and coming at the net
Archived article from Dec 7, 2001
By Douglas Frank
Last year the Rutgers women's volleyball team took a 23-7 record into the final game of the Big East tournament, only to lose to a perennially powerful Notre Dame squad. This year, at 16-5, the Scarlet Knights, after a key player went down with a knee injury, lost in the Big East's semifinal to a Georgetown team they had beaten in the regular season.
Inexplicably, despite its records, Rutgers each year missed selection as an at-large competitor to continue on in the NCAA tournament.
Regardless of the NCAA's imperfect judgment, Rutgers women's volleyball has been achieving a steady upward climb toward the top of the Big East under the guidance of head coach Ann Leonard-House. In 1994, she inherited a 6-21 program, which had lapsed into torpor since the 1980s, and has turned it into a consistent winner.
On a personal note, she marked her 300th career victory against Villanova Oct. 19 and subsequently took her team to the Big East Tournament for the fourth straight season. Rutgers has recorded six consecutive winning seasons during her eight-year tenure, achieving 17-6 this year after a post-tournament win over Hofstra.
One of the biggest reasons for Rutgers' change of fortunes is Leonard-House's commitment to recruiting and developing talent, in search of which she scours the continent. This year's team has players from seven states, including California and Hawaii, as well as Canada.
Recruiting for volleyball is as intense as in basketball or football, she says, and the better you get the more the competition for top players increases. The East, she notes, has not yet developed the volleyball programs at the high school level to produce the talent needed to compete in Division 1. However, she adds, New Jersey is improving each year. "It will take some time before the young women of ability go out for volleyball rather than the regionally strong sports like basketball, softball, field hockey and lacrosse," she observes.
Leonard-House's won-lost record includes a 181-88 slate in eight years as head coach at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, her alma mater, where she began her career at 24, one of the youngest Division II head coaches in the country.
Born outside of Paris, France, Leonard-House moved to the United States at the age of 3 and grew up in Methuen, Mass. As an athlete, she participated in swimming, track and field, and volleyball in high school and competed on the Boston University swim team and track and field team as well as the club volleyball team. She transferred to UMass-Lowell, where she was a two-time all-region performer for the volleyball team.
Nineteen months ago, she marked another major milestone in her life when she and her husband, Jeff, became the parents of a baby girl, Elizabeth Jean, who was born conveniently between seasons.
"To do that as a coach has been a dream come true," she observes, noting that she and her husband, an assistant coach with the WNBA's New York Liberty, perform an "interesting juggling act with our daughter between the two sports schedules.
"For her first nine months, Elizabeth traveled to 21 states," says Leonard-House. "She is well-traveled, the players really enjoy her and she has had great role models. She also knows that you bounce a basketball and hit a volleyball," she adds with a laugh.
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