Sarah Gustin back in SoCal to ignite the program

By Michael Rawson

Some people never intended to become parents.  Some people never intended to become volleyball coaches.

It just happens.

After nearly four perfect years playing Volleyball for Michigan State University, in which she made the all Big-Ten Conference team three times, Sarah Gustin suffered what would be a career-ending injury. She moved back to Southern California in 2000 and signed on to be an assistant coach at Vista High School. Less than 10 years later, she has been hired to initiate the women’s volleyball program here at CSUSM.

“I really felt a strong connection to the sport,” she said about her first coaching gig. “I wanted to give back; I ended up falling in love with the profession. It’s a fun job for sure.”

From there, things began to fall into place. “Jobs just started coming to me, and it worked out nicely,” Gustin muses matter-of-factly.

Assistant positions at the College of Charleston and Cal Poly led to her most recent title of assistant coach at the University of Indiana. She has also traveled as a coach to Croatia, leading an American squad in a global challenge, and in 2006 served as the assistant coach for the USA Junior National A2 team.

Regardless of the exotic and faraway places in which she has coached, Gustin is impressed with what CSUSM has to offer.

“I love it [here]. It’s an easy place to sell for recruiting. It’s a great place to work.”

Speaking of recruiting, consider Gustin the resident expert in San Marcos. She also spent her time at Indiana as the recruiting specialist.

Her recruiting here will mostly be done locally, an area that she says is “so rich in talent.” But she may bring in recruits who have contacted her from as far as Oregon and Arizona because “everyone wants to live in Southern California.”

Like the other sports programs, Gustin’s Volleyball team will spend the 2011-12 season as an NAIA independent. Though the NAIA is often thought of as the lowest level of collegiate athletics, it’s really just a separate entity, and Gustin says playing in the association will be far from easy.

“It’ll be tough that first year. [NAIA teams are] equivalent to the Division II teams we’re going to be playing in 2012. A lot of them could beat Division I teams.”

Still, she is clearly excited about the year ahead of her. The keys to everything have been handed over by the school, including scheduling games, administrative duties, and even designing of the uniforms (the team recently signed with Adidas), which she promises will be “something cool.”

Gustin is ready for the challenge here, and she has an idea of what it will be like.

“I have a very close friend who started a [NCAA Division II] program four years ago. I remember when he took the job I said, ‘you’re crazy, why would you want to start a program from scratch?’ And then I didn’t think about it until I took the job, but he called me and said, ‘Hey, crazy.’ He’s been a great confidant to bounce ideas off of.”

Likewise, with Gustin on the sideline, expect Volleyball games to bounce the Cougars’ way in 2011.