Natalie Schwartz was one of the most successful players ever to don a jersey for the University for Calgary women's volleyball team, and last season she became the second alumna in Dinos' history to become head coach.
Schwartz grew up in St. Albert and fell in love with the sport when she began playing volleyball at Sir George Simpson school in Grade 7.
"My volleyball career kind of took off from there," she says. "I started playing club volleyball in Grade 7, and at the end of my Grade 8 year I played for the provincial team in the summer. Usually the age group is Grade 9 and 10 and I made it as an underage player."
The young volleyball talent spent her Grade 10 year playing at Paul Kane High School and then went to W.P. Wagner in Edmonton where she finished out her high school volleyball career.
Schwartz thought she would eventually join the University of Alberta Pandas squad after high school but a visit to the University of Calgary changed her mind.
"I came down for my recruiting visit and I got to watch them play the University of Manitoba and loved the team dynamic," Schwartz says. "They really had a desire to win and they were a really passionate group. And so what ultimately made my decision was the people that were here. I could really see myself working with them to build something great for five years."
Schwartz did indeed build something great with the Dinos. She was the starting setter in all five years of her playing career; a two-time all-Canadian, a three-time Canada West champion and in 2002 she received the Bill Popplewell Award as female rookie of the year for the University of Calgary.
Schwartz also earned a Canadian Interuniversity Sport championship title with the 2004 Dinos. It was the highlight of her varsity career.
"I'm not sure there's anything that compares to that," Schwartz says. "And it wasn't just winning that year, it was the group that we had. To this day I've never played with a group that was so single-minded and focused on one thing only for that year – and that was to win a national championship. It was just a really special group of people that are still some of my closest friends to this day."
While Schwartz would love to take her current team to nationals, her main priority as a second year head coach is to build a team that is consistently competitive.
"Everyone says it's three or four years, maybe five, to build the program that you really want … so right now my main priorities are recruiting and making sure I'm getting the right people in place to eventually get us to a point where we are consistently competitive every single year," says Schwartz.
For the coach, competitive means earning a spot in the Canada West Final Four championship. It's no easy feat in such a rivalrous conference.
"In the last four years we lost in quarter-finals in our Canada West conference. So this year my goal would be to get to the Final Four and then once I have all the right people in place is to have a competitive program that is making an appearance at nationals almost every year."
Switched to coaching
Schwartz says that she had no clear goals to coach after playing with the University of Calgary – there were just opportunities. After graduating with a degree in communications, Schwartz landed a job as executive director of the Dinos volleyball club. Working for the Dinos she began coaching club teams and eventually became an assistant coach with the University of Calgary team from 2007 through 2010.
Schwartz credits her Dinos head coach, Kevin Boyles, with getting her into coaching and showing her the impact that a coach can have on a team of young women.
"Even when I was still playing he would always joke to me about eventually taking his place one day. At first it was just a joke, but it became more and more serious. And even now I look back at the conversations he and I would have, and the things he would show me about the inner workings, and I realize that he was actually mentoring me and preparing me for this position."
Schwartz says what she loves most about coaching is the relationships that she builds with players.
"My number one reason for getting into this is I'm seeing people reach their potential. Every day I get to see people get better at something they weren't good at before, and that's really exciting to me. And it's not only on court. I get to see these ladies grow into mature young women and that's really exciting to me."
In addition to playing and coaching during her 10-year history with the Dinos organization, Schwartz is also a co-founder of the Best of the West tournament. The annual event provides an opportunity for female U17 and U18 club volleyball teams from across Canada to compete against teams outside of their league. It's also become a major recruiting event for Canadian post-secondary programs.
"There was such a problem before of people going down to the U.S. simply because U.S. recruiters have the budget and the time to be able to come and see our athletes. This became another way of fighting that and exposing our athletes to the amazing programs that we have here in Canada."
In six years the event has grown from four teams to 32 , and in keeping with the Dinos' philanthropic tradition, the event benefits not only the players but also local communities. The prize money for the winning teams at the Best of the West tournament is donated to a women's health and wellness charity of their choice.
The Dinos are currently sitting at 4-6 this season with one more weekend of competition before the Christmas break. The head coach says the team is doing alright.
"We could finish anywhere from fourth to seventh in our conference right now," Schwartz says. "There are a lot of teams that are really, really evenly matched so we're right in that mix."
