By Rich Palzewic
Sports Editor
GREEN BAY – When former Green Bay Preble High School girls’ volleyball coach Lee Stuyvenberg began his coaching career in 1980, he had no knowledge of the sport he would coach at the school for 20 years.
For his achievements, Stuyvenberg, who still lives in Green Bay with his wife Cathie, was inducted into the Wisconsin Volleyball Coaches Association Hall of Fame April 28 in a ceremony in Wisconsin Dells.
As the Hornets’ varsity head coach from 1981-99, Stuyvenberg won 10 Fox River Valley Conference titles, 13 WIAA regional championships, went to the WIAA state tournament four times and won the Division 1 state title in ‘91.
“The story is quite interesting how I began coaching,” said Stuyvenberg, who along with his wife, are affectionately known as Mr. and Mrs. S. “I had just started teaching at Preble in 1980, and during the first week of school, I heard an announcement advertised for a JV volleyball coach. I didn’t pay much attention to it at first until I heard the announcement for the third or fourth time. I went and checked it out with the varsity coach Mary Maslowski. I told her I was willing to help, but only if she sat on the bench with me. I didn’t know the rules to the game or had ever coached girls before.”
Stuyvenberg played basketball in high school and college, so he ran basketball drills during practice because it was the only thing he knew how to do.
“I had great kids that first year, and we had fun,” Stuyvenberg said. “We took it one match at a time, and I began to learn some volleyball-specific things. At the end of the season, Mary transferred to a different school and the AD called me and told me I was going to coach the varsity. By this time, I knew the basics, but it was another huge jump. I realized I needed to learn a lot more, so I began going to clinics.”
Stuyvenberg said he gained a mentor in Shawano coach Matty Mathison a few years later, and that changed the way he approached things.
“Matty tuned me in on how to coach and how to connect with the kids,” said Stuyvenberg, who taught at Preble until 2010. “Whenever I saw Matty’s teams play, they always had fun. She taught these ropes courses where it was competitive for her girls, but it also taught cooperation. I started taking my team to the ropes course in 1987, and those girls will tell you that’s when they noticed a significant change. We were already getting better, but it really helped our program.”
Stuyvenberg’s family was also a big part of the team’s success, with Cathie being the statistician and his sons, Drew and Matthew, being student-assistants while at Preble.
“My wife got very much involved as time went on,” said Stuyvenberg. “It was also the best thing for my boys to be around these wonderful girls on the team – they got to know them as people. It was a family event.”
Stuyvenberg doesn’t remember much about the specifics of his squad’s ’91 state championship, which is still the only volleyball state title won by a Green Bay metro school.
“That was our first attempt at volleyball state,” Stuyvenberg said. “We were lucky at Preble because we always had a lot of success in cross country and track, so it wasn’t the first time going to state for some of the kids. I remember our games that year were competitive.”
Preble finished 8-1 at state in ’91 when pool play was still used.
The Hornets also went to state in ’92, ’93 and during Stuyvenberg’s last season in ’99.
Stuyvenberg knew the time was right in the fall of ‘99 to step aside after so many years on the bench.
“Twenty years is a long time to do something,” he said. “I remember getting on the bench at the start of the season and feeling like I never left from the year before. I told Cathie that it was a fun thing I did for so long and the girls were great, but it was time to step aside. I told the seniors on the team I was also a senior with it being my last year. It was a good decision and we never looked back. We definitely missed the kids after stopping.”
Stuyvenberg was notified in early April about his nomination into the WVCA Hall of Fame, so he immediately thought it was an April Fool’s joke.
“I was totally surprised to receive the honor,” he said. “I hadn’t heard anything from anybody in 20 years about my coaching, so I first thought it was a joke with it being so close to April 1. It feels really good. It was always about the kids.”
Stuyvenberg is still involved with the game by officiating at the lower levels.