COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—Hugh McCutcheon had plenty of opportunities to coach internationally after leading the U.S. men’s volleyball team to the gold medal in Beijing.
Family, however, takes precedence.
McCutcheon agreed to coach the U.S. women’s team through the 2012 Olympics, passing up offers that would have taken him and his family overseas. He replaces Jenny Lang Ping, who did not seek a contract renewal after the U.S. women won the silver medal in Beijing.
“It would have been inappropriate for us to go to Europe at this stage,” McCutcheon said Monday. “Clearly, there could have been some big financial returns. This opportunity is a win-win in that it presents me this professional development opportunity while also allowing us to stay in the United States.”
McCutcheon’s wife is former Olympian Elisabeth “Wiz” Bachman, and she and her parents, Todd and Barbara Bachman, were attacked as they visited a popular Beijing tourist site a few hours after the opening ceremonies. Todd Bachman was stabbed to death, and Barbara Bachman was badly wounded.
Barbara Bachman eventually returned to her home in Minnesota, and McCutcheon said she is doing “much better.”
“Physically she’s pretty much healed from all of the trauma,” he said. “Now it’s an issue of just dealing with the emotions and the grieving process.”
McCutcheon and his wife live in Southern California, and that was as far away from Bachman as they wanted to be right now.
“After Beijing, the idea of staying in the United States became important for us, so that we could be closer to family,” McCutcheon said. “I just didn’t think (going overseas) was right for us personally.”
McCutcheon could have stayed with the U.S. men, but coaching the women’s team had always intrigued him. The more he and USA Volleyball CEO Doug Beal talked, the more sense a switch made.
There aren’t big differences between the men’s and women’s games, and McCutcheon isn’t the first coach to make the change. Jose Roberto Guimaraes led the Brazilian women to the gold medal in Beijing, 16 years after doing the same thing with the men’s team in Barcelona.
“The primary challenge I think is, any time you’re trying to implement a different system or establish a different kind of culture within a group, there’s going to be some challenges,” McCutcheon said. “That’s clearly the biggest issue. I don’t think it’s a men’s vs. women’s issue, just a coaching style that’s going to be different.”
The switch also could give the 39-year-old McCutcheon expanded opportunities should he decide later he wants to coach at the collegiate level. There are about five times as many Division I women’s volleyball programs as there are men’s programs.
“The idea of having worked with both national teams was pretty appealing and is certainly unique,” McCutcheon said. “If we were going to spend four more years in this meat grinder, it would be great if we could come out at the end of it with an augmented skill set, maybe some more desirable skills that would prepare us for next step.”
One of McCutcheon’s first challenges will be finding a new training site for the U.S. women.
The women currently train in Colorado Springs, Colo., where USA Volleyball is based, and McCutcheon said studies have suggested altitude can affect how far a served volleyball travels by as much as 3 1/2 feet. That was a big factor when the U.S. men moved their training facility to Anaheim, Calif., in 2006.
“If we’re going to play at sea level, we need to train at sea level,” McCutcheon said. “… The game is a game of inches, and a point here and a point there are a big deal. I don’t think we would have had the success we had on the men’s side if we weren’t training in Anaheim.”
Beal said USA Volleyball already has talked to five or six cities, but he did not have a timetable for when a decision might be made. USA Volleyball will continue to be based in Colorado Springs.
