‘Leave a legacy’: How two Modesto schools became the first boys volleyball teams in the city
When the Sac-Joaquin Section released its boys volleyball playoff brackets on April 29, there were schools from Lodi, Stockton, Ripon and many different cities around Sacramento.
But none from Modesto.
In the state of California, boys volleyball participation has increased every year from 2010-2019 according to the National Federation of State High School Associations, gaining the most steam in Southern California and near the Bay Area.
Two schools in Modesto have made their mark by starting teams this year: Davis High School and Central Catholic High School. The teams were started in an attempt to provide an extra sport for boys in the spring, and grow boys volleyball in the area.
For the Spartans, the process started in the summer. The school had a Summer Bridge program that gave students the opportunity to get engaged and find out about programs at the school.
Davis coach Renaldo Rucker, Jr., who also serves as the school’s Black Student Union advisor, brought the mindset of getting students involved in extracurricular activities into the school year.
“It was really organic … I asked the students, ‘What is it you guys want to do? I want to connect you with something. Or if we don’t have it, you can create it.’” Rucker said. “One of my sophomores suggested we do volleyball.”
After gauging interest, Rucker and a few students started having Wednesday meetings during the first few weeks of the school year. They started small, but continued to grow as buzz began to spread around campus about a new club being formed. It spread through the campus mostly by word of mouth in PE class and as students passed out flyers inviting friends to try volleyball.
“Not a lot of people knew about it,” said sophomore Ernesto Alonso. “I was just spreading (word) around. In my PE class, we’d play volleyball and I’d be like, ‘You should try out for the team’. They’d say ‘We have a boys volleyball team?’ ... And more and more people started sharing.”
Davis is the first Modesto City school to have a boys volleyball team compete as a CIF sport.
“It’s cool to start anything … but I’m just happy that I think for them and even for myself, I think it’s cool to be able to start and leave a legacy on your campus,” Rucker said. “Everybody moves on at some point. I just think it’s good to be a part of building something. Hopefully, I feel like they can take that into their careers and be innovative in their careers.”
Central Catholic coach Josh Spivey said the idea for a boys volleyball team came up a couple of years ago without much buy-in, but when the opportunity came around again this year, everything fell into place.
“We tried to start (a team) a couple years ago, but the interest just wasn’t there from the boys in the school,” Spivey said. “It came back up again this year and we reached out to the boys and we had a meeting about it, and we had a good 20-something boys show up to our meeting. So it was like, ‘OK, maybe this is serious.’”
Taking it to the board
The buzz was there on the Davis High campus, but for the first three months of the school year, boys volleyball was just a club. They had practices but couldn’t play against other schools and scrimmaged with each other.
Rucker and Davis High Athletic Director Tim Garcia were persistent in moving things forward to take the club and turn the group of interested students into a boys volleyball team that could compete in the California Interscholastic Federation season in the spring.
“We had meetings with our principal and people from the district office, and they said they can make it happen, but we’ve got to hit these timestamps.” Rucker said.
Their next step was taking their concerns to the board.
“We were thinking if we go to the school board, we’re not gonna miss these timestamps,” Rucker said. They’re gonna know for sure we’ve got enough interest.”
Rucker took a small group of students to an Oct. 18, 2021, board meeting. Among them was freshman Noah Castro, who read a letter stating why they wanted a team.
“Walking in as a freshman, it was really official,” Castro said. “The way it looked on the inside of the room I was just like, ‘Wow’. But when I spoke, my friends and Mr. Rucker stood up there with me. I approached them talking about how we wanted a boys volleyball team and how it’ll introduce it to new kids.”
Castro’s letter was written by Rylan Lee.
“I just wanted to convince them to let us play because we knew it was gonna be a good thing at the start,” said Lee. “People wanted to play and we didn’t have a team here.”
It worked.
Things started moving along and by December, the students’ hard work was rewarded. First with a winter break camp then, after break, things became more “official” and they started conditioning.
What made this experience unique for those involved was that most of the students at the forefront were underclassmen. When younger students are usually wide-eyed, trying to find their way, those at Davis made a way of their own.
“It was a great opportunity for us to really push for having a boys volleyball team and to start playing against other teams,” said Aveon Kao, a freshman who also attended the school board meeting. “I felt like it was really good that a lot of underclassmen helped … start the program.”
Said Rucker.: “They know the power they have now. So next year, they can do the same thing if there’s anything they want. We’re helping them advocate for themselves.”
Learning as they go
Before this spring, Central Catholic and Oakdale were the only two Valley Oak League schools that didn’t have a boys volleyball team. Now, Oakdale is the lone holdout.
Davis is a member of the Western Athletic Conference and the league already had five schools with established boys volleyball teams, including Ceres High.
This made it easier for both schools to come in right away and compete for a league title.
Having an established league to compete with made the transition easier, but there were some hurdles along the way.
“We had three people show up to conditioning for the first day,” Spivey said. “So it’s like, ‘Okay, we have 30 people at the meeting, what happened to all our players?’”
Though they had enough players, Davis and Central Catholic didn’t have “volleyball players”.
Instead, the Raiders brought together a combination of athletes from a variety of different sports to field their team.
“I can’t say that I’ve had anybody that’s really ever played volleyball before, except maybe one or two that played in middle school,” said Raiders coach Josh Spivey. “Everybody else is completely new. I got a collection of football guys, one one or two basketball guys and then other guys that just didn’t play any sports, and that were just athletic and wanted to do something.”
At Davis, they drew inspiration from the girls team.
“My only background was coming to the (girls) games and getting to watch and see how intense it was.” Castro said.
Rucker said a lot of his team played volleyball in PE class, but hadn’t played organized volleyball.
Senior Abdul Akbari had experience playing with members of the Afghani community in Modesto. He says he started playing in 2020 and he helped teach those who hadn’t played before.
“It helped a lot because this is our first year,” Akbari said. “The team didn’t play before, and then when we came, we kind of pushed the team to improve and to get better.”
Rucker also took his team to watch college volleyball at UC Merced. They learned a lot from the experience that translated to the court immediately.
“They brought back so much of the camaraderie that they have now,” Rucker said. “Hearing all of the feedback from all the different coaches they say, “Man you guys are really good for your first year.”
Moving it forward
The desire for a boys volleyball program at Davis will continue as Kao, Castro and Lee played on junior varsity and will improve in the coming years. Alonso was a captain on Varsity as a sophomore.
In their inaugural season, the Spartans finished 6-13 overall and 4-11 in Western Athletic Conference games. They only have three seniors between the JV and varsity teams, so the plan is to return nearly every player from this year and make a playoff push next season.
“It’s a good thing because now they can carry it forward,” Rucker said. “The seniors are one and done and they’re gone. The main thing is just taking ownership of your education and your experience. Hopefully that continues and we keep adding other programs and developing the ones we have.”
Davis is the first Modesto City school to have boys volleyball but it won’t be the last. Garcia said there is a possibility that all schools could have teams by next season.
Spivey and girls varsity head coach Michelle Springmeyer will have to rebuild next season; 10 of the team’s 13 players are seniors. He is anticipating a few years of learning and building up the program.
“We’ve got one freshman and two juniors as my underclassmen, so as I see it right now. It’s gonna be a lot of learning.”
Building a program at their respective schools will pose different challenges, but Davis and Central Catholic will be linked as the first two schools in Modesto to have varsity boys volleyball teams. The goal is to grow the game in this area.
“I hope it grows,” Spivey said. “I hope seeing that there’s another sport available … in the spring gives them an opportunity.
“I hope seeing us and Davis and people being out and enjoying our games gets other Modesto City Schools interested. Hopefully it gets started around here because there’s a lot of boys that miss out on spring sports, especially basketball. If they’re not doing anything, they’re missing out on a sport that’s a lot of fun and has a lot of very similar skill sets.”
