When he was a senior volleyball player at David Thompson, Coleman Chan, then 17, was coaching the youngest boys at the school on the Grade 8 team.
He graduated and eventually started working as a chef at Cactus Club but didn’t abandon his connection to the East Side school’s volleyball program. He coached the same group of boys in Grade 9 and would have coached them again this year on the junior team — except he took a different offer.
The players asked him to coach them on the senior team.
“I wouldn’t have done it if they hadn’t asked,” Chan said two weeks ago at Magee secondary as the Trojans celebrated winning the city championship in three straight sets.
“They came up to me and said, ‘Hey Coleman, can you coach us?’”
Since the junior team was severely short of players, they opted to fold and merge with the senior team. Three Grade 10s play on the senior team alongside four Grade 11s and six grads. The previous coach didn’t return this season and Chan, who is known to the players by his first name, stepped up.
“He’s there as a friend and as a coach,” said Jonathan Lee, a five-foot-three service specialist who’s mastered a strong, deceptive floater. “Most of us, we knew we weren’t going to have a junior team and asking him to coach was a good thing.”
Victor Yung, the team captain and setter, had trained with another coach for four years since Grade 8 and while losing that connection had its own disruptions, he said Chan brought in a new atmosphere and intensity. “It’s different but it feels great,” Yung said. “That changed our whole game completely.”
Yung is two years younger than his coach, but no one gets hung up on age. Besides, the setter is learning essential skills.
“As a setter my main job is to connect to everyone and run different plays. Coleman really helped me mentally — if my mental game isn’t there, their mental game isn’t there. If we don’t connect, then we can’t get hits,” said Yung, 17. “Coleman basically just keeps pushing us, pushing us to work hard [set] plays and we eventually get used to them.
“We definitely respect him as a coach.”
The team’s sponsor and David Thompson teacher, Irving Lau, remembers Chan as a student-athlete.
“On the courts he had always been a leader and captain,” he said. “We always strive for our kids to show leadership [and] want them to take on responsibility for themselves and pass that on the general community.”
In fact, the school has an impressive history of relying on alumni to support its athletic programs. Chan, who also trains in mixed-martial arts, is one of the few to get his start when he was still a student.
The Trojans aspire to win the Lower Mainland zone tournament, on this week at various Vancouver secondary schools. The top four teams qualify for the provincial championship, held in two weeks in Kelowna at UBC Okanagan.
“We want to win Lower Mainlands,” said Yung.
“And then provincials,” added Lee.
“Even though [Chan] is younger than most coaches, he’s an excellent coach,” said Yung. “He motivates us when were down and makes things work. That’s all we can ask for. He does his job and we do ours.”
The Lower Mainland championship game is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 15 6 p.m. at David Thompson.
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