Your future, our focus
Danny Menig
Trail staff writer
At 28 years old, Shaun Pohlman has experienced more mountains and valleys than many men during an entire lifetime.
Not unlike the back and forth and up and down that is a great game of volleyball – for which he is the new coach here at Northwest College – Pohlman’s life story is a series of triumphs and tragedies that may ultimately lead him to successfully fill the very big shoes of his predecessor.
“You have to be able to balance family and your job and it’s a tough thing,” Pohlman said in a lengthy interview with the Trail in his small Cabre Gym office, lined in schedules and practice plans. “I really had to learn how to be proactive and how to be able to manage difficult situations.”
The Idaho State University graduate was barely into his first professional job when his father died of cancer. Just as he thought he couldn’t find a job seeking his degree skills, Filer Idaho High School was seeking an interpreter. The head coach at the varsity level of the high school had a position open as an assistant coach and a coach position open at the seventh grade level. Pohlman coached under Filer’s varsity Head Coach Ed Richards, who taught him to treat players as people first and imprinted his coaching methods upon him.
“I was coaching at Filer and there was a generated interest to play club volleyball in the spring and some people asked me to open a club,” Pohlman said. “So we developed that and it just so happened that my position was being dissolved as an interpreter. Then I got a call from Kansas, and from Twin Falls, Idaho, that’s so far away. A buddy of mine that coached soccer at Dodge City made a suggestion and I applied for the position and they didn’t act on it as fast as they thought they would.”
In June of 2006, Pohlman’s brother-in-law was diagnosed with leukemia and the next day Pohlman was flying to Dodge City, Kansas, for the interview and in less than a months time was getting married then going on his honeymoon and coming back three days later and moving over 1,000 miles across country.
“Moving over 1,000 miles across country to a world where we had no family or friends other than the soccer coach and that was an interesting point in time for me,” Pohlman said, reflecting on the events he encountered at that point in his life. “The first year it was July of 2007, so two weeks before the season started and my understanding was I had 9 girls, but when I got there I had only seven and one had quit so I was left with six girls and no setter. So I was able to get a setter, we survived and that’s what that season was about and we went 4-31 matching the record of the previous year.”
The following year, Pohlman was able to create a team with a 21-19 record with only a year of recruiting.
“Had we gone anything less I might have doubted myself as a coach but we had a winning record after going 4-31 so I was happy about that. I think you have to have a vision and you have to package it in a way student athletes can understand it and the number one thing I said was I just need to players and if I get them we will go out there and win some games. I was fortunate to get some decent players to come out and turn the program around and I was very fortunate to cross their paths to help us turn that around.”
A year later, the team had gone 13-15 on the season. Before the first tournament five players had gotten into a car accident resulting in injured players, including the team captain.
“Our captain was out with a high grade concussion and she was out for the season and two other girls were out for the majority of the season and it was a hard thing to come back from. I’m still happy with getting one win away from a .500 season after a terrible car accident,” Pohlman said. “One of the players was a freshman and the one that was out for the season decided to come back and we moved her from a hitting position to a defensive position which was a little change for her and because she came back we got her into a division 2 school in San Francisco and got a pretty good scholarship while she’s there. She got into a school of her dreams with a program that’s been turning around big and she’s helping them turn it around as she did us in Dodge.”
Not only does Pohlman put his focus into the athletics of his players, but harps on the player’s education.
“I don’t just try to help on the athletics side. I try my best to stress academics, all I can do is provide guidance and I try to do that,” Pohlman said. “In 2008 we were one of nine two-year schools to earn AVCA National Academic Team Awards. Then in 2009 we were able to repeat that we were one of eight to receive that award and that’s on the academic side and I’ll continue to stress that.”
Pohlman had been keeping watch for an opening in an area close to home such as NWC.
“I kept my eye on this position for about a year and Flavia had just gone to nationals and it would be ridiculous for the school not to hire her and I looked into being her assistant but I wouldn’t have been able to move my family here on that position and I kept my eye on a few jobs which didn’t open up and I don’t think I chose this school because it’s the only school I chose it because I feel comfortable with what this school has. There’s a great sense of team work here,” Pohlman said after spending only a couple of weeks on campus. “I haven’t seen an organization run this cooperatively yet. Here people know their rules, their positions and by in large, everybody wants everybody here to be successful. I can help fight for my program and I could also help basketball fight for theirs and I could help the photography department and on campus it feels like that’s what everybody wants.”
Not only is Pohlman excited about his work-life on campus but how close him and his wife and two year-old son will be to family in Twin Falls, Idaho.
“The nice thing is we’re moving closer to home, we’re within a half day’s drive from home and that was a great opportunity to be close and within the first two weeks I already took my wife back and it’s great,” Pohlman said with a glance at the clock knowing he will be returning to his new home with his family in a few short hours. “I like it, it takes me a couple of minutes to get home, I like that it makes me want to go home more for lunch and dinner and it helps me balance out my family a little bit better and thanks to the lack of distance we’re going to become closer.”
Until the 2011 season begins next fall, Pohlman is hot on the recruiting trail and sharpening the returning players.
“Three girls will follow me from Dodge and a girl from Idaho and is now a senior and is looking to come here and the libero who got into the car accident’s sister is coming up from Kansas for a look. I love the fact that I’m able to step in and people really want to attend this institution,” Pohlman said. “We’re working on a couple of individuals that are coming back next year trying to get them developed and trying to get them ready for next year having team practices here and there and trying to get the sophomores who show an interest to move along. I met with all the girls individually and tried to find what their interested in and trying to help the others that are coming back.”
Returning players include Lauren Buseman and outside hitter Cailey Washington who are thankful to have a coach of Pohlman’s caliber.
“I think it’s much better now since before we didn’t have a coach with him being here we are just able to put more time into it,” Buseman said in the locker room after a workout with her teammate. “Flavia’s way of coaching was more boot camp style but with Pohlman I’ve never thought about volleyball in such a mental way. You have to be able to read other people and put more of a mental perspective and this past week and a half I can tell I’m getting so much better.”
“It’s not so much about thinking about completing it it’s about going through the process and figuring out how it works,” Washington added. “I definitely think he’s taking the reigns in his own way it’s not so much he’s cutting out the program in the past but he’s putting it in his own way and I think we will be great and it’s beneficial to the program, himself and the players.”
Pohlman also looked forward to the 2011 season understanding the challenges which await him.
“Region IX is one of the toughest conferences out there and I want to compete for nationals every year and we’re sitting in some really great teams,” Pohlman said. “There’s some legends here and it’s going to be a good challenge and I’m excited for that challenge and if I don’t see us as being a contender than what’s my point of being here? The believer in me says it’s a possibility to make a run at the national title.”