Player Testimonial – Tim Kutcher (JC 2015)
Coach Hetzel was a true leader who had an incredible impact on my life. He came in as a coach for a volleyball team that wasn’t particularly good, and he made it an incredible experience for me and all of my teammates.
I mainly want to focus on the team my senior season, in the Fall of 2014. The team was a really quiet group, and for some of the guys, volleyball was their only sport. It wasn’t a group of top-notch athletes who were there because they loved competing, but Coach Hetzel completely changed the dynamic of the team. Like I mentioned, everyone on the team was a pretty quiet person – if it weren’t for being on the same team as them I might only know what one or two other person’s voices even sounded like. Coach Hetzel challenged us all to become not only better volleyball players, but better leaders. He would make the entire team do a wall-sit for minutes at a time, then walk up and down and when he pointed at you, you had to scream “BALL” as loud as you possibly could. If you didn’t scream as loud as you could then time would be added to the wall-sit.
That’s the type of coach he was – he changed us not only as competitors, but as people. He took a bunch of kids who were relatively shy and had them screaming at the top of their lungs with the cheerleaders practicing on the other side of the gym. It made a difference, and the team became a bunch of competitors who all wanted to win. I look back at the videos from that season, and see myself having the time of my life celebrating points with guys I probably would never have been friends with outside of volleyball. I see myself becoming a leader and learning to make others around me better instead of just myself.
I think Coach Hetzel’s definition of a leader would have been a person who makes those around them better. That is what he was for me, and that is what he helped me become. I remember him coming up to me one time after a practice my junior year, and I still remember the dialogue. “Tim, listen to me – you know how to lead by example and that is what you do for these guys. Everyone on this team looks up to you and respects you. You have the respect of those senior clowns, even if you don’t realize it. I want to see you taking charge with your voice and rallying everyone up, keeping even the guys who are older than you in check. I know it’s not easy, I mean just listen to me and my monotoned voice. I challenge you to step up with your voice and keep everyone focused on winning.” After that season, I became much more of a vocal leader both in volleyball and baseball. I attribute so much of that quality to Coach Hetzel.
Before Coach Hetzel was my coach, volleyball was just a fun activity, and that was it. Yes, I would get competitive and I would want to win, but I wouldn’t particularly work hard to do so. I think most kids on the team would say the same. I remember the shock for everyone the first time we had to run for volleyball. We were all like, “what is this? We have to do drills, run, and do wall-sits for volleyball? Last year we just played games and did hitting lines for all of practice.” I remember one day when practice was over and he wanted to work a little extra on my setting. It was just me and him in the gym, up against the net, setting back and forth to each other for literally nearly an hour. We also had to yell “BALL” before each time we touched the ball. It was the little extra dedication like this that turned me in to a real competitor in volleyball. He honestly perfected my setting, and he made me want to be the best setter I could be. He was also being an incredible leader for me. Here was this guy who had an incredibly busy schedule with work, was newly engaged, and found the time to coach a high school volleyball team, taking extra hours out of his day just to work with me and mentor me.
Men’s Volleyball was the perfect sport for him to mentor people and develop leaders. It is a sport almost everyone doesn’t pick up until high school, and for a lot of kids it is their first time playing a sport more competitively. I am positive Coach Hetzel made the high school experience of all my teammates much better through volleyball. I witnessed him create friends, competitors, and leaders out of a huge dynamic group of people. I am sure all of my teammates feel the same way.
I talked with Coach Hetzel about more than just volleyball – we talked about baseball, school, fantasy football, and more. He was a coach who was truly concerned with all of his player’s success in everything that they did. He had a great sense of humor and he made volleyball fun while keeping it serious. He was an incredible leader for me, and for everyone on the teams that he coached. He will be greatly missed, but the leadership he instilled in everyone will live on. He was a true patriot and made John Carroll extremely proud.