This December, the Broncos hired new head volleyball coach Matt Buttermore, in a bid to increase stability.
For the last five years, HC volleyball has been plagued with inconsistency at the head coaching position. In five years, the program has held six different head coaches.
“I don’t have any plans to go anywhere and I just proceed accordingly,” Buttermore said. “I think my actions will show that. You’re going to spend some time building trust and eventually in time that trust will come.”
Hastings College is Buttermore’s first head coaching position.
Prior to joining HC, the 29-year-old coach from Lincoln, Neb. spent six years coaching at the NAIA level as an assistant at Concordia University and Bellevue University.
“I always thought it was a great program here,” Buttermore said.
For the last three seasons, Buttermore served as an assistant coach at Bellevue University, working with the outside hitter and middle blocker positions.
At Bellevue, Buttermore was honored with the 2011 AVCA Thirty Under 30 Award and helped coach the Bruins to win two conference championships, two regular season conference titles and attend three consecutive NAIA tournaments.
Furthermore, Buttermore has coached one NAIA second team All-American (2011), one honorable mention All-American (2010), as well as six different players with All-MCAC first team honors.
After serving under head coach Trish Siedlik at Bellevue, who has a collegiate record of 277-74 (.789), Buttermore looks to apply his knowledge from previous coaching jobs and mentors to his new role at HC.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned is how to run a good program beyond all the court stuff,” Buttermore said. “I learned how to run a program that people respect and people want to be a part of and that’s competitive nationally.”
Buttermore said that he hoped to use a 5-1 offense, but that most of the lineup considerations would be more fully developed this spring. However, he already had an idea of the style of play he wants to introduce.
“We want to go as fast as we can and still be consistent and still have some room for the players to be a little bit creative and make some plays on their own,” Buttermore said.
Buttermore started working with the Broncos in January. He laid out how practices would be run, what the team guidelines were and how players are expected to interact with each other.
“If something happens, like a dropped ball in practice, we don’t just ignore it, we address it,” Buttermore said. “We basically went over what we mean when we say certain things so they know where I’m coming from and they know what to expect when I say what my expectation is.”
During the off-season, Buttermore’s wife, Laura, has also been helping the team with training and conditioning.
“We started workouts on Monday and they’ll work out through the month of February,” Buttermore said.
