Opposites Getting Right With Help From New Assistant

In the spring of 2020, Oregon volleyball coach Matt Ulmer was looking for creative ways to engage his team while they were navigating the early stages of the COVID pandemic.

The team was still meeting together, albeit virtually. For a few of those sessions over Zoom, Ulmer tapped some connections with his former program, Long Beach State. He invited legends of the sport including Misty May-Treanor and Tayyiba Haneef-Park to speak with the Ducks.

Haneef-Park is a two-time Olympic medalist for Team USA, as a hitter on the right side. Oregon’s own opposites, Gloria Mutiri and Morgan Lewis, both used the same term to describe themselves in meeting Haneef-Park – “fan-girling.”

“I’m a little bit of a volleyball nerd, so I still watch old Olympic Games and stuff in my free time,” Mutiri said. “So yeah, I knew who she was. The teams she was on, I could probably tell you where every single player was from, their hometown, things like that.”

Mutiri didn’t imagine a relationship with Haneef-Park would extend beyond their pandemic Zoom session. Then, an assistant coaching position opened up on Ulmer’s staff at Oregon.

“When Matt told us she was one of the options for the job,” Lewis said, “we were so excited. Because we were going to benefit so much.”

Haneef-Park did end up joining the UO staff in the spring of 2022. Two years after having Mutiri and Lewis “fan-girling” about their Zoom meeting, Haneef-Park is a mentor to Oregon’s opposites, who take the floor in Matthew Knight Arena on Friday when the Ducks host Utah at 6 p.m.

Once the Ducks got over their initial excitement about their new coach, Haneef-Park leveled with them about her expectations.

“I’m going to ask them to do some monotonous drills; I’m going to hold them accountable to some things, and it’s not going to be easy,” she said. “But if they continue to put in the work, it will pay off.”

The Ducks have seen the fruits of that work in recent weeks. The team enjoyed a six-match win streak in late September into early October, and three of Mutiri’s five double-digit kill performances so far this season came during that stretch – including a 14-kill match against Arizona State in which she hit .700 with no errors.

Lewis played only one set during that span of six matches. But encouraged to keep grinding in practice with Haneef-Park, Lewis kept herself ready. She stepped in to a bigger role over the past two weeks, playing all five sets and recording 11 kills at Washington, and tallying seven at UCLA.

Lewis…