The class is for coaching minors who spend a third of the semester each studying coaching techniques for volleyball, soccer and tennis.
Today’s group is teaching serving.
He tells the members of his undeniably diverse class to pretend as if their classmates are on a high school volleyball team.
Between baseball, football, lacrosse and track and field competitors, he’s got an eclectic mix of student-athletes alongside regular students.
Most are sports administration majors in the Exercise and Sports Science Department, but Sagula also has education majors and a Religious Studies student. Tabb studies Communications.
Sporting his 300 lb. Power Clean Club football T-shirt, Tabb tosses the volleyball high in the air and jumps up — his legs splitting apart in midair — before surging the ball over the net.
With a resounding boom, it fires off the front of the bench and begins rolling back to his side of the net.
He looks over to Sagula.
“I won it?” he yells.
“Hey!”
He takes the Reese’s.
Sagula begins to chuckle and then signals for a water break.
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He’s spent the last 33 years as a head coach and has been at the helm of North Carolina’s program for 24 seasons. He’s accumulated more than 700 wins, has been to the NCAA tournament 14 times and holds onto 11 ACC titles
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But to Tabb and the rest of the class, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 11 until 12:50, he’s their teacher.
The humble varsity coach takes the time out of his already busy schedule to devote to a group of students that have no connection to him. They’re not his players, but that doesn’t matter. They could be.
He treats them with the same respect, the same compassion — and they love him.
“It’s a great experience because he’s the head coach of the volleyball team here, so that’s really awesome,” junior Wrenn Shoulars said.
“It’s surprising how cool and down-to-earth he is. I thought he’d be extremely intense, but he’s really lenient with us especially because I’ve never played volleyball.
“It’s a blast. It’s my favorite class for sure.”
She’s not alone.
Sagula said his assistants used to coach the volleyball portion of the class but decided they didn’t want to anymore a few years ago.
At that point, he turned to Sherry Salyer, a teacher in the department and the coordinator of the coaching minor when she was looking for a replacement.
“I said, ‘You know what?’ I’ll do it,’’’ he said.
“I said I’d like to. I get to know more people, more students, some of the other athletes and it’s a time in the year, January, when I have the most time.”
Ever year, he said, it only gets better.
In June, when the baseball team made its run to Omaha, Neb., Sagula watched at home, elated for his former students.
“We had four of the stars. We had Colin Moran, Chaz Frank, Michael Russell and Chris Munnelly,” he said.
This year he has Landon Lassiter and Trevor Kelley.
“It’s kind of neat to watch some of the athletes who are All-Americans, like Abbey (Friend) over there, All-American and captain of the lacrosse team and national champion, trying their best to play volleyball,” he said.
“Or Jack (Tabb) over there on the football team.
“What I l really like about them all is that … they really try to do it. They’re not here just kind of goofing off.”
The whistle blows and the first group, the group that taught serving, is ready for feedback, both from him and their classmates, now that the water break is over.
Sagula talks to the class about the importance of distinguishing between mental and physical mistakes when deciding whether or not to punish a team.
“Physical mistakes are gonna happen,” he warns them.
“But if you overdo it with punishments, you start to break down the players and their confidence.”
The group takes in his feedback, all of them lined up facing the rest of the class.
Charles McMillan stands at the end of that line, wearing a black quarter-zip with black gym shorts.
He’s a 36-year-old junior and is taking the class with the hopes of one day coaching his 9-year-old daughter Anissa now that he’s home from 27 months in Iraq with the Army. He’s a biology major, an aspiring pharmacist, but he’s a father first.
“When my daughter got to the age when she started plaing sports, I saw the coaching wasn’t really there,” he said.
“There’s no focus, no anything. So I took it upon myself to learn how to coach.”
With his combat experience, he knows how to be a member of a team, how to stay even-keeled in tight situations.
And Sagula has helped teach him one of the most important lessons yet.
“The first lesson I learned was children aren’t mini-athletes. They have their own psychological problems,” McMillan said.
“They’re more concerned about what’s being served for lunch or whatever’s on Nickelodeon, so you have to really gain their focus.”
The critiquing session is over, and it’s onto the next drill. The group will have just one more class with Sagula before switching to the soccer portion.
Tabb said they’ll certainly miss the teacher they’ve grown to appreciate so dearly.
“Coach Sagula, I told him we need to get a men’s vollleyball team going,” he said.
“We got some ballers in here.”
Would Tabb be on it?
“Of course.”
And Sagula would certainly welcome Tabb onto his squad — as he would any of the students in his class.
“It’s a good group — the reason why I do it,” Sagula said.
“If I had a class where I said, ‘You know what, they were a pain and this isn’t fun,’ I probably wouldn’t wanna do it. But I have left every class so far, each year seems to get better and better.
“I’m charged up from the enthusiasm that they have.”
sports@dailytarheel.com
