Hood Hires New Coach for Women’s and Men’s Volleyball

By Braden Weinel//

Hood College hired Kevin Russell as the new head volleyball coach in the summer of 2021. He will coach his first season with the women’s team this fall and the men’s team in the spring of 2023.

Russell said he took the job at Hood because he would have the opportunity to coach both men and women, something he has done in the past. He also said he loved the Frederick area.

Going into his first season with the Blazers, Russell said he feels confident because of the culture, energy, and chemistry that exists around and within the team.

Russell said he focuses on developing his team as people and not just players. He said he wants players who are coachable, good teammates and have the right mindset to get better every day.

Russell and the other coaches of the volleyball team give out a weekly award to one of their players called the hard hat. This is awarded based on the recipient’s work ethic. The first recipient of this weekly award was senior Robyn Reus, the team’s libero.

“He’s brought attention to skills that I need to work on and has made me a more efficient player,” sophomore Bri Demouy, a middle hitter, said.

Russell has a bigger task on his hand than most coaches because he must organize and run two teams.

There are similar but also different ways for coaching women’s volleyball and men’s volleyball. Russell said that he may need to approach certain situations within the teams differently, but there is a common area when it comes to coaching men and women.

“There is enough of an overlap in the way that you coach people, that you can transition from one to the other pretty well,” Russell said.

There is a big difference when it comes to recruiting for men’s volleyball, however. Russell plans to be more proactive in his outreach to male players because there are fewer of them to go around.

Despite this, Russell said that the addition of a men’s volleyball program is a great way to bring more male athletes to Hood.

Before coming to Hood, Russell coached at many different levels, from starting his own club program, to coaching at Division I schools, to assisting the United States women’s national team. Russell said he thought he was done coaching once he had children, but when his daughter said she wanted to play volleyball, he jumped right back in.

Russell started playing volleyball at the club level in college while at the University of Massachusetts. He admittedly was not a great player when he started, but after connecting with players from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he began to improve.

Not long after he began playing competitively, Russell got the opportunity to try out for the United States men’s national team, something only achieved via invitation.

“It was a great experience because I got the chance to be in the gym with the men’s national team coach…and it created a little foundation for me,” Russell said.