Women’s Volleyball News

Throughout the 2017-18 season, U SPORTS sits down with one key athlete, coach, and staff member of each U SPORTS athletic program in our new interview series “Getting to know…”

Tim-Louks-headshot.png (60 KB)Name: Tim Louks
School: McMaster
Sport: Women’s volleyball
Position: Head coach
Seniority: 29 seasons
Previous school/position: McMaster men’s volleyball head coach (1986-89)
Hometown: Hamilton, Ont.


1. How did you first get involved in coaching? What was your path to your position as head coach of the Marauders

I was a School of Education candidate from 1978-82, with a heavy emphasis on teaching. Sport was always a big part and teaching was very closely linked to that at that point in time. It seemed like a natural progression.

The volleyball component of that ended up as a spinoff of trying out to play basketball. I was recruited to play basketball here, but leadership changed and I didn’t make the team. So I walked down the hall to Smith Gym and that started that.

I played five years here with three different head coaches and a broad assortment of guys, and then was given the opportunity to serve as a teaching assistant, deliver practicum, and take on a teaching role with the men. I coached the men for three years, before (then McMaster women’s head coach) Thérèse Quigley suggested that I come help out the women’s team and get three times as much money to coach as an assistant. She became the interim women’s coordinator in 1989 and inevitably moved into the Director of Athletics and Recreation role.

I’ve been coaching volleyball since I was 17 or 18, and coaching other things prior to that.

2. Who are the people that have influenced you most as a coach?

There are so many coaches and administrators here at McMaster who have influenced me in my time here. Names like Bill Fowler, Ray Johnson, Mary Keyes, A.J. Smith, Ross Tripp, Joyce Wignall, Barry Phillips, Les Miller and Thérèse Quigley. Those were all important coaching elements, who processed what was going on and made up the McMaster culture.

3. How would you describe your coaching style?

Three words: engage, enable and empower.

I believe that we inherit those as part of the education delivery mechanism that is sport in our country. They have served me well and it behooves me to maintain them as they take on different shapes in the 21st century. I still think it comes down to those three things. These are still students first and then athletes second. It’s our responsibility to create perspective and maintain that as we build in excellence in performance.

Performance is important, but it’s not the reason why these institutions exist.

4. Which coach do you admire the most, and why?

We’ve had so many great coaches cross our path, and so many within the academic world as well when you’re in a school that is very integrated, as it used to be when there weren’t any separations (when athletics was an aspect of the Department of Kinesiology).

People like Bernie Custis, Marcelo Campanaro and Greg Marshall to name a few, unrelated to volleyball, who succeeded in combining the academic and athletic requirements of our environment to great effect.

5. What is the most “outside the box” thing you’ve done as a coach?

I remember distinctly a young lady who was struggling to contact the ball volleying, so we would wrap her hands up in pre-wrap -- the sponge-like material that you would apply before taping -- to keep her hands from coming apart, and let her run around practice like that.

We had team-building exercises to build trust and reliance, and we had one player walk across an eight-foot length of four-by-fours from one end of the hitting box to the other supported by the shoulders of her teammates.

You never even think to ask her if she’s afraid of heights.

Tim-Louks-1.jpg (3.77 MB)

6. What is your greatest coaching moment or achievement?

I don’t know if there’s one. As many as there have been, there are many more to come.

Every coach worth their dollar will tell you about the ones that got away. I’ve tried to manage that, not necessarily suppress it but manage it. Because sport is just that. Opportunity comes and goes.

We do what we can, to the best of our abilities, whenever we can. Whatever happens past that is beyond our control. If these players’ livelihoods were anchored to the outcomes of what we do, we’d be doing things very differently.

I couldn’t tell you my record if I tried, but I can tell you with pride that we’ve never had a student-athlete fail. That’s important. The number of Academic All-Canadians that we have averages four to five per year.

Being amongst the best and playing amongst the best, occasionally you become the best. And then you start all over again, and I think that’s all you can ask.

7. What’s the best advice you can give to an athlete and/or athlete’s parents?

I use a saying that I probably butchered from someone else. I always tell players to keep their eyes on their fries.

The moment that you don’t live in the moment, you miss the important things that occur. You have to find it in news or recollection. This only happens once in the fashion in which it’s happening. Were we to do it again, something would change.

I always try to relate that to athletes as they go. The blur that everyone refers to. It only happens once. Embrace it as much as you can, and continually evaluate and move along a path that you think you want to follow.

8. How have you changed as a coach over time. What principles/values, etc. have remained the same?

The second part of that question is a bit easier, and the answer to it is to be consistent in your delivery and keep your eyes open. Never rest comfortably. You walk into a Western town as a gunslinger and you think you’re good. But if you stop for a moment, the townspeople are measuring you for a coffin.

The moment you stand still in sport is the moment you potentially sign your epitaph. Sport is an always, everyday learning environment. It’s listening, watching, seeing and responding.

I’m not sure it’s my biggest change, but it’s the impetus to respond to change. Don’t lose where you came from, but position it so that you don’t become a relic.

9. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not in coaching mode?

The boys and I (sons Alex and Zack) have as much fun as we can playing The Claw and Tickle Monster at seven and nine years old right now. They’re into some different things, and it’s ironic that they’re not heavily interested in any team sport.

My guys would rather be measured against themselves when it comes to sport. They play it for the enjoyment of the game, whatever it happens to be.