Craig Skinner isn’t just coaching against Wisconsin tonight. He’s coaching against a guy who once shared a cramped high school gym and an undefeated JV season with him.
Kentucky’s head coach and Wisconsin’s Kelly Sheffield both grew up in Muncie, Indiana. In 1990, they led the Muncie Burris JV team to an unbeaten record. Same town, same school, same volleyball-crazy ecosystem that turned a couple of small-town gym rats into two of the best coaches in the sport.
Kentucky and Wisconsin volleyball go from an undefeated JV team in Muncie to a Final Four showdown in Kansas City
“Kelly has earned everything he’s gotten,” Skinner said. “He’s come from humble beginnings, both in school and in coaching. He’s been on — coached and packed his car in an evening, had to be in Houston 20 hours later to start his first coaching job probably making about $10,000 a year. I have a lot of respect for someone that earned their way to this point in time.”
Both of them trace their roots back to the Shondell family and the Ball State tree. Don Shondell built the Cardinals’ program. Steve Shondell helped turn Muncie Burris and Munciana Volleyball Club into one of the true hotbeds of the sport. That’s where Skinner’s whole view of coaching was formed.
“Ball State University started as a teacher’s college. Coaching is teaching,” Skinner said. “The joy and passion and interest in helping players do something better than they ever have before. You really felt the essence of what coaching is.”
He even tried to walk away once. Skinner got his accounting degree, went into banking, and still couldn’t shake what started for him in those Muncie gyms.
“I tried to get away from coaching for a while… got into banking. It sucked me back in because I love the competition and the teaching aspect. That started in Muncie, Indiana, in 1988 or ‘89 for me.”
That’s why he gets a little protective when he talks about why people should even get into this profession.
“I always tell people that if you’re going to get into coaching, don’t get in it because you like it and you can make some money,” he said. “Get into it because you have a passion for helping people go above and beyond where they are. Kelly has demonstrated that for a long time.”
On the other side of the net, Sheffield sounds just as stunned as anyone that this is where their paths ended up.
“This wasn’t a goal for either of us when we were younger,” he said. “I think our 20-year-old selves sitting there thinking that both of us have won national championships, multiple trips to the Final Four, that would blow our minds. That was never the goal. We loved the sport. We were around really, really good people. Extremely fortunate of the people we were around when we were getting started.”
So tonight isn’t just Kentucky vs. Wisconsin for a spot in the national title match.
It’s two kids from Muncie, who once went unbeaten together on a JV team now leading two powerhouse programs, trying to end the other’s season on volleyball’s biggest stage.
First serve between Kentucky and Wisconsin is scheduled for 9 p.m. ET (or 30 minutes after Texas A&M–Pitt wraps up) on ESPN. One of those Muncie boys is going back to a national championship match.
The other will walk off knowing he lost to someone who understands exactly how hard it was to get there.