'We've got a fresh start,' says new coach

As the new head coach of Olds College's men's volleyball team, Darryl Noel wants his players to turn the page on multiple losing seasons in the ACAC.

The Broncos won a single match last year, one more than the season before that and the one before that.

Noel says his biggest challenge as he takes over the program this year will be getting the team to put all of that behind them.

"It has struggled and it's hard to know really what it is and what would have caused that," Noel says.

"It's about changing the mindset of the group this year and to stop focusing on their past. The past is the past and we've got a fresh start. We're going to start now."

Before he was hired by the Broncos in April, Noel spent years with the Cochrane Jaguars, a volleyball club that fields eight to 10 teams from the U-13 to U-18 levels. It is currently a club for girls, though a boys program is being developed. Noel served both as a coach and director there.

He also spent some time as an assistant with both the men's and women's volleyball teams at SAIT. In Olds he saw the next stage in his coaching career.

Noel has already met his new team, both returning players and new recruits.

"There's a good group of guys. In the open gym we had, it was fun to see them have a good time and trying a few different things," he says.

Volleyball is his passion but Noel has stated that his primary goal is to develop leaders out of young men. By day, he lives in Cochrane and works for a plumbing wholesale company in Calgary. He views the sport as a vessel for teaching skills that will be useful well after graduation, like teamwork, drive and leadership.

"It's about teaching them what can athletics give you in your everyday life. Their playing careers are going to be really short: at most, five years based on eligibility. Then it's going to be taking what they've learnt in that time frame and putting it into their everyday work life, whatever they choose to do for a career."

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