Scott Radley: The man who’s taking over from the McMaster volleyball legend
The easiest job in Hamilton sports? Hard to argue for anyone other than Simoni Lawrence's hair stylist.
The toughest?
That would be whoever takes over the reins of the McMaster men's volleyball program. That person will have to follow Dave Preston, who won 11 Ontario championships, five national bronze medals and two national silvers in 22 seasons before leaving Hamilton to run Australia's national team. Succeeding him will be a little like following the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.
That's definitely not lost on me," Brad Douwes says.
He speaks as a man who knows. Because we learned this week that the 34-year-old will be the man to fill those shoes. And don't think he's not aware of their enormous size.
But if you're expecting him to be feeling a bit overwhelmed at the challenge, he says that's not the case. Just excited because the dream of coaching volleyball full time has been bouncing around in his head for a decade or more now.
It wasn't always. In fact, Douwes - pronounced Dow-ess - was a late arrival to the game.
I never played a day of club volleyball in my life," he says.
Turns out he was a baseball and basketball guy as a boy. But at Hamilton District Christian High School, volleyball is a big deal. Wanting to play every sport he could squeeze into his schedule, he tried out for the squad. And quickly realized he loved it. The spiking in particular, as he recalls.
As a teenage boy, I liked the idea of hitting something really hard," he says.
He became pretty good at it so he kept playing when he went to Redeemer University and then started coaching there when he graduated.
In time, he took over as both men's and women's head coach, a role he held for eight years each.
In 2021, he left the Ancaster school to join Mac as one of Preston's assistants. Then got hired as the school's manager of competitive sports, where he's been for the past year - with no inkling the legend would be leaving and the position would open.
But when he heard, the thought of maybe taking the job popped up in his mind rather quickly, he says. Which means what? Days? Weeks? Hours?
It was pretty quick."
While he insists he's not feeling pressure, he admits there is a massive sense of responsibility that comes with the job. To the players, of course. To the school, naturally. To himself and his family, for sure. Interestingly though, he also says to the local volleyball community that's been elevated over the past years. In a big way because of the work Preston did.
Douwes is onto something.
Volleyball wasn't nothing around here before Preston arrived. Saying so would be ridiculous. But it was nothing like it is now.
The game has grown a huge amount in these parts. A big chunk of that has been Mac-influenced. All those championships. Games in a packed Burridge Gym against NCAA champions like Ohio State and Long Beach State. Hosting nationals.
You're not going to win every year. Heck, Preston never did claim a Canadian title - there's the target for the new guy - but maintaining a level of excellence so that a sport that could easily slip into the background if it doesn't have constant nurturing is crucial.
It's why, even though he technically doesn't start for a few more days, he's already thinking about his new job, nonstop. Even as he headed off to Calgary on Wednesday for the nationals with his under-18 Mountain Athletic Club team that just won the Tier 2 provincial title.
Then, when he gets back and gets rolling for real at the end of this month, he hopes for a different outcome than the one Fred Kaps had.
Uh, who?
Fred Kaps. The Dutch magician who followed the Beatles that night in 1964 and then was promptly forgotten by nearly everyone. Including, apparently, most people reading this.
Douwes has a chance to write a different story from that.
Really, what more could he want?
Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com