The Chatham Charter volleyball team recently finished one of its best seasons in school history. Last Saturday, the 19th-seeded Knights fell to the 14th-seeded Pamlico County Hurricanes, 3-0, in the first round of the NCHSAA 1A playoffs, eliminating them from the postseason.
However, despite the loss, Chatham Charter’s season — which included a seven-game winning streak, a regular-season co-conference title, a trip to the Central Tar Heel 1A conference championship game and a playoff berth — was nothing short of a success as the program continues to showcase its upward trajectory over the past decade.
This week, the News + Record spoke to Knights Head Coach Johnny Alston to discuss his team’s impressive season, its ability to bounce back from emotional losses and what coaching means to him. Conversation — which took place last Friday, a day before the Knights’ first-round loss — has been edited for length and clarity.
JOHNNY ALSTON: First of all, like I always say, hard work. And we have some good athletes there, when you break it down, but I have said along the way that we’ve been piecing it together because sometimes we have someone out, especially in practice. We didn’t have the greatest offseason, but I think that was a reflection of last season and everybody dealing with COVID and everything. But I told them, “Well, you know, everything’s designed for us to play our best volleyball at the end of the season and along the way, as long as we improve, I’m happy.” It was a little slow at first, but we saw improvement, then we went down to North Moore the first month of the season and we lost that, then we turned around and went to South Davidson and won it, we were able to bounce back, we saw that a lot early.
It’s all just been a result of hard work and just being good students as far as learning various things, being open for learning and just building on each experience they have.
I’d probably say just trying to stay positive, even in the midst of adversity. Yes, we might have lost, but we’re just not going to beat the dead horse and I always tell them, “When things don’t go your way, do you go crazy and start tearing up stuff and hollering and screaming, or do you figure out what you need to do to correct whatever problem you have, do that and move forward?” We take a move-forward approach to everything.
Every once in a while, I read to them a letter that Dean Smith wrote me years ago. Carolina was doing well, having a great season and they lost to Notre Dame, they went up to Notre Dame and they lost it. So I wrote him and I asked him, “Well, Coach, is there such a thing as a good loss?” thinking that, OK, they were undefeated and that rubber band was tightening up in the back of their minds and then they lose one and it took some pressure off. And he wrote back and he said that they try not to think in terms of winning and losing, but more so in terms of working to improve each day. He said, “It’s good to learn from a loss, but it’s even better to learn while winning,” so their focus was on improving every day and winning and losing would take care of themselves. I try to take that approach with the girls. As long as today is better than the previous day, then we’re doing the right thing.
We’ll start with Emerson Clark, she’s a junior. She has so much love for the game of volleyball. She comes to workouts about 86% of the time over the summer, so she really works hard. She’s an outstanding player, but she works hard, so whatever she’s getting in terms of the outside attention and everything, she’s earned it. She’s really been a strong player for us.
Then there’s Molly Wilson, she’s having a good season as a libero and playing pretty solid. She started out as a freshman as a setter, but the year I got sick, I noticed she changed positions and then when I came back, she was really diehard, wanting to be a libero and wanting to be a libero, so she’s had a really great year.
The few players that we do have, they’re pretty great athletes and volleyball players. Emerson, Molly, Tamaya Walden, Alexis Baldwin. And then all of the seniors, including Olivia Cheek and Taylor Brewer, they dropped out because of COVID and then came back this year and have come along over the course of the season and have really made a big difference. And then we have another junior, Ashlee Raines, she’s done well, and two sophomores who played last year as freshmen, Riley Maynor and Delana Loflin. So all of those girls, believe it or not, sort of tie it together to form what we have that’s brought us to a really good season.
Her top thing is her swing, her arms, she’s got a pretty great swing. Even though she serves well and she’s a good back court player as far as digging and things like that, but I would say the most outstanding thing would be her attacks, kind of like Woods Charter’s Lexi Smollen. She doesn’t have as many as Smollen and a lot of things go into that. Smollen and the setter there, Maya Sheridan, have a strong relationship. Even Emerson and junior Allison Perez, our setter, hook up pretty well, too, but the most outstanding thing about her probably would be her strong arm and her swinging.
A girl that used to play volleyball for me, she’s about 31 years old now, she recently got married just this past August in St. Louis and she sent me an invitation, so me, my wife and my son, we all went out to her wedding because she was adamant that we attend.
So, it’s just been the friendships I’ve made along the way. Everybody loves winning — and I learned how to deal with losing — but you just have to keep it into perspective. If we win, great, and if we lose, then hey, we’ll keep moving on, but the relationships we form and the way we treat people are probably more important than winning any kind of championship. That’s why I still go down to the gym and stay a couple of hours every day. That’s basically what it boils down to.
