Back from the Brink, Oakland Volleyball Ready for Horizon League Challenges

ROCHESTER, Mich. – In 2006, the Oakland University volleyball program won exactly one match.

A year later, first-year head coach Rob Beam led the team to an 8-21 record. In 2008, the Golden Grizzlies went 8-21 for a second consecutive season.

Much can change in four years. Oakland just graduated its winningest class in program history, a group of student-athletes who got the Golden Grizzlies over the hump with a 17-10 record in 2009 and went on to win 66 matches.

“I think our biggest challenge was the change of cultural momentum and just allowing the players to believe in themselves and allowing them to believe in the success that we could have,” Beam said in a phone interview. “The culture [was re-set] by the athletes who had been part of the 1-25 team. They were just really eager and ready to win and be successful. That group, I really give them a ton of credit.”

Six seasons after taking over a one-win program, Beam has an 84-88 overall record and an incoming recruiting class ranked in the top-55 nationally by PrepVolleyball.com. Early in the turnaround, the Golden Grizzlies were a hard sell for recruits – but working hard to prove that Oakland was serious about volleyball has paid off in a big way for the coaching staff.

“As we went through the next few years, obviously a big part of the process was recruitment of student-athletes and telling the story of what we wanted to accomplish with the program and sharing the vision that we all had in regard to what we thought Oakland University could be as a Division-I volleyball program,” Beam said. “We got some players to come and take a chance on a team that had not proven to be successful in the past but looked to be going in the right direction. They saw what we had to build with and it’s just kind of carried forward. We’ve had great recruiting classes in the past, but this one has just kind of reached the point of a fairly high level of national recognition.”

Now, armed with four consecutive winning seasons and a top-55 class of incoming freshmen, the coach looks forward to guiding a young team into a new conference. Beam spent five seasons on the volleyball staff at Wright State, so he is aware of what challenges are head as the Golden Grizzlies enter the Horizon League.

“I’m fortunate to have coached in the Horizon League, so I have a lot of respect for all of the institutions and all of the coaches,” Beam said. “I’m really excited to be back in the Horizon League. I love the conference footprint; I love the cities that we’re in.”

Beam added that, with such a young team, early season tournaments will be a major factor in preparing the Golden Grizzlies for the Horizon League season. However, the coach also pointed out that Oakland has had some success against their new conference opponents before.

“We do have a little bit of history; we were able to beat Cleveland State [the eventual 2012 Horizon League champs] last year in a five-set match that was incredibly competitive,” Beam said. Oakland also beat Wright State in 2011, but lost to Valparaiso in 2010 and was swept by the Raiders and Crusaders in 2009.

“For us, success is going to depend on being able to build team chemistry, to be able to assimilate all of those new people into our system of play and replacing some really talented seniors that graduated last year,” Beam said. “I feel really fortunate to have this team that we have right now going into the Horizon League. With 12 of our 16 athletes being freshmen or sophomores, we’re going to be able to build with them.”