Leaving a legacy
As a freshman middle blocker for Golden West Community College, Grayson DuBose had yet to consider a coaching legacy at Utah State University.
The year was 1986, and DuBose’s two years as a collegiate volleyball player had only just launched the career of a man who would soon win coach of the year accolades, rewrite records and claim a national title.
DuBose began coaching at Brighton High School in Sandy, Utah, in 1997 before his first encounter with Utah State University in 1999.
“Tom Peterson, who’s the Weber State coach now, got the job here at Utah State, and I happened to be up here working on a master’s degree at the time,” DuBose said. “He asked me if I wanted to coach with him and so I did.”
DuBose earned a job coaching the BYU men’s volleyball program in 2003, placing second in the NCAA tournament that same year. The following season, the Cougars won the national championship.
“It’s kind of nice to be the last guy standing,” DuBose said. “Not everybody gets that opportunity to be the last guy who wins a match.”
With a championship pedigree and a near-perpetual smile on his face, DuBose’s coaching style has earned him conference coach of the year honors twice since taking the head coaching job at USU in March of 2006.
Through eight seasons with the Aggies, he is the second-winningest coach in program history.
Senior middle blocker Kaitlyn VanHoff attributes the Aggies’ success to the closeness DuBose and the rest of USU’s coaching staff share with the team.
“We’re like a family,” VanHoff said. “They’re our coaches, but they’re also our friends. We can go talk to them about anything. They care about us as people and not just their players.”
Freshman Hannah Smith added that DuBose makes even new players feel included in the Aggies’ family atmosphere.
“He stresses that it’s our program,” Smith said. “It’s about the whole team. He cares about us outside of volleyball. He’ll ask about volleyball stuff, and he’ll ask about your family.”
DuBose’s relaxed attitude has not always been his style.
“I didn’t used to be that way,” DuBose said. “When I first started, I was very animated, and a coaching friend of mine sat me down and said he didn’t think it would help our team if I acted that way. So I decided ‘OK, if the team’s going to be a reflection of me, I want them to show a calm reflection.’ I hope I portray that and the team feels that, and I hope they reflect that a little bit.”
DuBose added that he’s still capable of being animated when the situation calls for it.
“There are times when I’ll get upset, and I’ll get a little bit in their face. I just don’t do it often,” DuBose said. “I always call it ‘lighting somebody up.’ Everybody gets lit up at some point. I don’t care if you’re a walk-on or an All-American. You’re going to do something dumb, and you’re going to do it a bunch of times in a row. I can’t have you do it a bunch of times in a row.”
As the Aggies conclude their ninth season under DuBose Tuesday at home against Boise State, the coach is especially motivated to send off USU’s five seniors the right way.
“This group of seniors has a chance to leave winning almost 59 percent of the matches that they’ve been in here at Utah State,” DuBose said. “I think that should motivate them to want to leave this legacy behind.”
— logantjones@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @logantj