The Next Level: Stanford Women's Volleyball Head Coach Kevin Hambly

The Stanford coach shares his wisdom on recruiting, social media use, specialization & much more!

The Next Level is a Good Game series where we chat with collegiate coaches about all the intricacies it takes to get to the next level.

Credit: Stanford Athletics

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Ok, on with the show. Ever since I hung up the phone with Stanford Women’s Volleyball head coach Kevin Hambly a couple days ago, I’ve been antsy to get his words and perspective out into the universe. Since taking over at Stanford in 2017, Hambly has guided the Cardinal to two national championships and four Pac-12 titles. Prior to Stanford, Hambly coached at the University of Illinois for eight seasons, leading the Fighting Illini to six regional NCAA appearances and establishing himself as a master recruiter.

It is the magical yet harried world of recruiting where much of our conversation is rooted. Hambly shares his recruiting methodology, where parents fit in (and when they need to step out) in the process, social media guidance, and all the reasons kids should play multiple sports.

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Melissa Jacobs: How has youth volleyball changed in the time you’ve been coaching and since you were a player?

Kevin Hambly: The game and rules have changed but the professionalism of it all is the biggest change. Volleyball, especially on the men’s side, was a niche sport. I played football and basketball as well, and the person tracking toward volleyball was a whole different type of person. It felt like this avant garde type of sport. And the women were playing for the high schools and maybe some club tournaments, but it was all small. Now, everything has become corporate and monetized. There are a lot of millionaires in our sport just from running clubs and tournaments. That didn’t exist when I was a kid. For us, it was trying to find a place to compete and play a tournament. Now there are packed convention centers, a hundred teams, 800 kids playing every weekend. With that comes different problems and issues, and it’s really hard for parents to navigate.

MJ: Are there a lot of kids who slip through the cracks because their families can’t afford the professionalization?

KH: Yeah, I grew up in more of an inner-city environment, and there’s no way the kids I knew could afford it. To be honest, I couldn’t afford it as a kid. I was on a scholarship to play club volleyball because my parents couldn’t afford it, but I was fortunate that I was a good enough player so someone was willing to foot the bill for me. Then I sold candy bars to pay part of it and luckily candy bars at the high school go quick, so I was able to make decent money. I was lucky, but there are plenty of people I grew up with who didn’t have those opportunities. It’s unfortunately become more of a country club sport than it needs to be or should be.

MJ: Illinois, your former team, and Stanford are both powerhouse schools. How would you compare volleyball’s role in the respective athletic departments?

KH: I’ve been lucky that at both Illinois and Stanford, women’s volleyball is perceived as one of the top four sports on campus in terms of respect and funding and all of that.

Conversely, we didn’t have men’s volleyball at Illinois. but here men’s volleyball is one of the bottom 34 sports on campus.  We’re lucky on the women’s side that we are considered a power sport, so we get similar support to football and basketball.

MJ: Can you please explain your recruiting process? Is it x number of scholarships to dole out? X amount of dollars?

KH: The first step is evaluation: going out and watching players to see who we’re interested in. We have 80 days we can go recruit, and we’re recruiting all 80 of those days. As I mentioned, there’s the convention centers and a concentrated group of athletes so it makes sense to be there.  We’re out three weekends a month just watching kids play volleyball. We need to see what’s out there. That part’s pretty quick and easy. After that, once we know the players we want – and I’ll be honest, at Stanford and Illinois, if we’re watching thousands of kids, there are maybe five or six that we’re interested in. Then of those five or six, we start learning more about them as people.

There are evaluations happening in their freshman and sophomore years, but it’s the end of their sophomore year when we can have direct communication with all the athletes. At that point, we start chatting with them, look at their course schedule and start the process of trying to get to know the athlete and deciding if they are someone we want to recruit. If we decide we want to recruit them, then we start talking about campus visits. After that, kids start making their decisions.

We have 12 scholarships, the standard for women’s volleyball at the Division I level. In some sports there’s an equivalency. That means if you have 12 scholarships, you can divvy that up among 24 players or 36 or whatever. Volleyball is a headcount sport. For us, we have 12 scholarships, and we can give out 12.

Then we typically have four-to-six walk-on athletes that we actively recruit and have on our team as well.

Credit: Stanford Athletics

MJ: How much of a role does the high school play in the recruiting process vs. the club?

KH: I engage the high school coach because they spend more time with the athletes. Usually, they are teachers and oftentimes have taught the athletes so they can speak a lot more to character. The club coach usually just spends time with them in the gym. The high school coach sees what they do day-to-day. Are they involved in other activities? Are they leaders on campus? Are they helpful? Are they good students? All those things.

For us at Stanford, we also must work with the academic advisor. At Stanford, we have to engage the athletes and ask them to pick up the rigor. We ask them to take more AP classes than anyone else who’s recruiting them. It’s only us and the Ivies that are asking them to take eight-to-nine AP classes. Most kids aren’t on that path already so we have to work with the academic advisor to see if they can head on that path.

MJ: Is there a minimum GPA and minimum course load they must have?

KH: No, not really. Yeah, we want them doing well but there’s no set number. It also really depends on the school. For instance, we were recruiting a kid out of Iowa and her school didn’t offer AP classes. Stanford Admissions isn’t going to hold that against her. It’s more, what other classes can you take?

Most of the kids we’re talking to go to high schools with 19 AP classes so Stanford’s going to want them to take a lot.

Again, our process is different. Most kids can go to another school without taking even one AP class.

MJ: Other than talent, what are the most important traits in a recruit?

KH: Yeah, talent is easy to spot and that takes about five swings or five passes. I say this in quotes but “we’re experts at evaluating.” Sure, there’s still some guessing that goes on and you don’t really know, but we’ve watched enough to know who the best athletes are. I think the whole gym knows who the best athletes are. The real evaluation comes with just paying attention to how they interact with their coaches and teammates. A lot of time, when I really like an athlete, we walk into this convention center with 100 courts, I’ll sit two or three courts away and pretend like I’m watching someone else, but I’ll really be watching the athlete and how they interact with their coaching staff and teammates. If they lose, how are they going to respond to that? How are they treating their parents? Are their parents running off and getting water for them, or are they taking care of it themselves? Are they good people? Would I want to coach them? I still remember what it’s like to play so I think whether I’d want to be teammates with this person. If the answer is no, I stop recruiting them.

Do they work hard? Do they care? Are they competitive? Those are the things we pay attention to a lot. That, to me, is the biggest part of the process because evaluating them as athletes is really easy.

MJ: Have you ever been burned in the sense that the athlete knows you’re watching during the recruiting process so they’re on their best behavior but then unravel once they get the offer?

KH: I wouldn’t say we’ve been burned because as soon as we decide we’re going to recruit them, we get them on campus pretty soon. And the longer you spend with someone, the more you see. It’s almost like we want to wear them down on the visit. We want them to be so scheduled that they’re worn down because they’re going be worn down during the season, and we want to see what they’re like when they’re cranky and tired. How are they treating people? We have these two-day visits, and we’re scheduling everything on them because we want to see how they respond. We have them spend time with other athletes, and sometimes the current athletes will say they don’t want that person as a teammate. Not because they’re scared they’re going to take their spot. It’s more like, that’s not a person they want to be around for whatever reason.

I once cut a visit short because of the horrible way the athlete was treating her mom. It was just three hours in but I had to tell her it wasn’t going to work out. She was bossing her mom around and rolling her eyes at everything she said and talking over her when she was asking good questions. The mom was just trying to figure out the process; this was her first kid.

They had driven four hours so I said, ‘I’m sorry, it’s not going to work out but I’m glad we know that before you commit here.’ I said to the mom, ‘I’m sorry for the way she’s treating you.’ And I told the daughter, ‘the way you’re treating your mom makes me think you might treat everyone poorly.’ The mom thanked me, and they just drove home even thought I offered to still show them around. She went on to be an All-Conference player. It just wasn’t worth it to me to take that on.

That’s what we’re looking at. The longer we’re around the person, do we still like them? It’s kinda like dating. Not in a creepy way, but you spend a week together and everything seems great but them you go a trip together and it’s like, NO WAY.

MJ: What is the role of the parent in the recruiting process? How much or how little do you want to hear from a parent?

KH: [Laughs] How much do we want to hear from parents? No, we want the parents involved given these are young women trying to make big decisions. I think where it gets dicey is when parents are trying to live vicariously through their kids. When they’re more excited about the process than the kid is or not really paying attention to where their kid is at with this process. These kids are trying to make these really hard, stressful decisions and I think sometimes the parents complicate it with their own emotions. At the beginning of the recruiting process, we try to educate parents. And if parents try and speak for their kid, we remind them that we’re interested in hearing from their daughter, that they have no eligibility left. It’s their daughter who we may be coaching. Most parents get it and back off.

MJ: How does social media factor into recruiting?  Are you following some stud 11-and-12 year volleyball players on IG or TikTok?

KH: The likes are legal so everyone is liking things and liking our stuff. I have zero social media but our Stanford Volleyball account definitely follows some of our recruits. Some of my assistants, who are younger, will follow them. Again, I like to stay away from social media but if you ask any coach, they’ll say it’s very important. It’s also a way to gauge interest from the athletes to see who they’re following and who they like. Who they’re retweeting. It’s definitely become a way for the athletes to indicate that they’re interested before we can talk to them. So there’s some sub-communication there.

MJ: I know you’re not the social media guy, but do you have any general guidance? Is there such a thing as trying too hard?

KH: I don’t think so. What’s the term kids use? People can appear too thirsty by how much they’re putting out. There’s some that will signal, look at me, but as long as it’s done through a recruiting lens and the kid has a healthy relationship with it, it’s ok.

My bigger concern is how the kid looks at it, but I’d venture to guess that most of the time it’s the parent putting stuff on the social media accounts. And we’ll watch the highlights. Not me, but my assistants will watch highlights on IG. The bigger things they need to be careful of are how they represent themselves on the non-volleyball stuff. I think it's become more of a challenge with the NIL and how that’s based in social media and athletes trying to create their own brand.

Allow me to get a little philosophical. What I worry about is, I think the seperation of what we do and who we are is really important. The identity piece being wrapped up in the sports especially by the time we’re recruiting them as sophomores and juniors in high school. The kid at the high school who’s called “the volleyball player” and not being called by their name. When I see them getting wrapped up in that identity instead of saying, ‘I am Kevin and I play volleyball’ is scary. Having a healthy relationship with the sport or being a student or a friend or whatever, that separation is really important. And the social media piece and the NIL piece are trying to couple those things at a strong level. Being able to monetize that coupling makes me very anxious as a coach and the father an 8th grader who wants to play volleyball in college. That coupling is so dangerous. Because all of the sudden if you’re not playing well, you’re not ok and that gets dicey with these young minds. I just want to put that out there because I’m not sure these are things that parents really think about.

Credit: Stanford Athletics

MJ: Well said. What are your thoughts on specializing in volleyball? Do you recruit multi-sport athletes?

KH: Absolutely. I wish my daughter would play other sports. She was a really good soccer player. She played club maybe a little early and that probably burned her out. She also has a nice jump shot, and I wish she’d play basketball but she won’t. She just wants to play volleyball. I’m personally in favor of kids playing multiple sports all throughout high school. I know clubs would say different but from a college coach’s standpoint, you learn lessons in the other sports you’re playing. If you play an individual sport, you learn a different kind of toughness. There’s so much to learn form different sports. Like in soccer it’s all about spacing and angles. If they’re playing other sports it’s just going to be make them better at learning

MJ: Is your daughter playing club?

KH: Yes, and we’re spending a ton of money.

MJ: Yeah, I thought travel baseball was expensive until I saw the costs of club volleyball.

KH: 11-and-under was her first year. She begged us to play. I think we spent $42,000, and it’s only gone up as she has progressed.

MJ: Wow. I know she only wants to play volleyball but if she wanted to play club soccer or AAU basketball too, is that even possible?

KH: Probably not. She played beach this past summer but even that was hard to squeeze in. She’s playing year-round. The clubs monopolize your time. There’s a girl on her team that could have been a nice college volleyball player, but she’s also a hockey player. She had to quit volleyball to focus on hockey because that was her first love. It’s such a shame she couldn’t do both, but hockey was putting so much pressure on her to quit. It’s a shame the clubs don’t more to make it work. It was better in the Midwest by Champaign. There’s a lot less specialization because these were small schools and farm towns. They could play softball, basketball and volleyball. They were great athletes, and it didn’t hurt their volleyball at all.

Here, I think the kids are squeezed so much and the clubs get anxious. I wish they’d let them play more sports.

Thanks to Kevin Hambly, and thanks to you, the reader, for your support. If you enjoyed this interview, please share it with a friend.