Metea coach learned in the trenches

Updated: April 2, 2011 9:24AM

As the coach of Metea Valley's first-year varsity volleyball program John Aister is getting the opportunity to preach what he's practiced.

Nobody questions the credentials of Aister, who, in 2001, was the star setter on the first of Wheaton Warrenville South's six state titles in the past decade and later served as an assistant to Tigers coach Bill Schreier.

"Bill is a good friend and we maintain a close relationship," Aister said. "Most of what we're doing here comes from Wheaton Warrenville South and from our club experience. It's a great tradition and it makes sense to model our program after it."

Another former Tiger is Metea assistant coach Doug Burchett who followed Aister as the starting Wheaton South setter on championship teams.

"The fact that we're both setters is a plus for our program," said Aister. A setter has to know what everyone is doing, and we played with some of the best hitters in the state. As setters we had to maintain a close relationship with the coach and we both benefited from that."

Schreier is pleased that his former students are now coaching at the high school level.

"It's nice that they're coaching and helping with the game," Schreier said. "John knows what it takes to develop a program because he was around as a setter when our program was in its infancy. We had a team that became starters as juniors and in those two years they built the tradition here."

Schreier is optimistic about the future of the Mustangs program under Aister and agrees that playing the setter position is a great training ground for a future coach.

"Being a setter certainly helped John's transition to coaching," Schreier said. "When he was playing for us John had good interpersonal skills. He listened, he had a good work ethic and could lead by example. He always demanded more of himself than he did of his teammates, and that's important for a coach. He knew the entire game and he knew the guys' tendencies and where they needed to be. He had to talk to all of them in a way they understood."

Aister is employing a lot of the methods that made the Tigers program successful while adding wrinkles of his own.

"Bill has built a great tradition there," said Aister. "He's won six championships. Why not build your program after them? When I assisted him in 2007 it was a young team and I got to see the expectations Bill had for them. They went on and they won the first of three titles in a row that year. That's very encouraging for us. That's a huge message because we're proceeding without any excuses that we're young. We think youth will prevail."

Based on last year's sophomore team experience, Aister believes the Mustangs can be successful this year.

"A lot of guys got a lot of playing time last year," Aister said. "And we have some talented club players who worked hard in the offseason. Our goals for this year are just to be competitive and win some matches. We have to be realistic because we're going to be in a strong sectional. So we just want to get better as individuals and as a team as the season goes on. It's a challenge for us to be getting this program off the ground. We're having a lot of fun doing it."

Aister is especially pleased that Burchett has joined him at Metea.

"Doug knows the game," said Aister. "And I know that I have a guy I can trust with the setters and with all the other guys. We come from the same background, so I know we're teaching the same things."

Not to put any extra pressure on the coaching staff but Bill Schreier will be an interested fan this season.

"I'm excited to see how good the Metea team will be," Schreier said.

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