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It might feel like Missouri State Volleyball Coach Steven McRoberts was hired years ago.
“It’s been a crazy year to be doing a job transition,” he said.In reality, he was in January. A lot has happened since then, just not on the volleyball court.
“[We] got about four or five weeks in with the team in the spring, and after spring break is typically when you get going with spring practices and getting your whole system in and hitting it hard and we never got to do that,” McRoberts said.
Instead, he’s really only seen his team through zoom calls this summer.
“It’s not like we haven’t been in contact, we haven’t been talking, but we’ve got to start learning each other’s personalities on the floor,” McRoberts said.
The team will only have one month to do that, with practices starting August 17 and the Missouri Valley Conference fall season beginning September 18.
“We hope a month is enough time,” McRoberts said. “We’re probably going to use the weekends when we’re not playing to hopefully get a little bit more done.”
One of the many banners at Hammons Student center is one of Bears volleyball great Lily Johnson. On it, reads a saying “built on tradition, driven by ambition.”
McRoberts hopes to build on that Bears tradition despite some of the challenges facing his program.
“You walk in our gym and you can’t help but just look at all the banners that are hanging, the tradition,” he said. “It means a lot, because I’ve been at places where volleyball just didn’t mean a whole lot, and here it does. And that’s fun and it’s going to be a lot of fun to build this back where it belongs, so I’m excited to get to work.”
