Overview:
UCSB picked to finish third in Big West Conference race behind preseason all-leaguer Gabi Martinez and a host of transfers
The Circle of Life has brought Michael Henchy back to where his volleyball career was born.
The UC Santa Barbara Thunderdome.
He was a 15-year-old freshman at Ventura High School, still unsure of his future in sports, when the Cougars’ varsity coach summoned him to a tournament at the Gaucho arena.
“Somebody had either gotten sick or had other plans, and they needed a middle,” he recalled. “So last minute, on a Saturday morning, I get this call: ‘Hey, can you get up here?’
“I got up in time for their last match of the day … and my first varsity playing time came here in the Thunderdome.
“I got a little taste of it that day.”
It would become the main course of his life in the years that followed.
Henchy won All-America honors at both Ventura High and Ohio State, played pro volleyball in Greece, won an NCAA women’s championship as an assistant coach at Penn State … and got his first head coaching job last February when UCSB hired him to succeed Matt Jones.
“It’s surreal in a lot of ways,” Henchy said.
“My first-ever collegiate start for Ohio State also came here at UCSB at Rob Gym in a rematch of the (2011) NCAA championship game,” he added.
“It added another layer to it all … of me back here, playing in front of family and friends.”
He’ll begin his coaching career with the Gaucho women when they open the University of Arizona’s Wildcat Classic against Tarleton State at 3:30 p.m. Friday.
UCSB will also face Prairie View A&M at 10 a.m. Saturday before concluding tournament play against the host Wildcats at 12:30 p.m. Sunday.
Henchy’s first game at the Thunderdome will come at 6 p.m. Sept. 3 when UCSB plays Iowa State to open the Gaucho Invitational.
A Frosh Outlook
Playing volleyball had been an after-thought for Henchy.
He’d played ice hockey as a kid and made the transition into football when he started high school.
“That’s what every boy did freshman year at that time,” he told Noozhawk. “My mom had played volleyball in high school, so there was that level of connection, but it wasn’t such a big part of my life.
“I was kind of looking for a way out of off-season football conditioning and PE when I signed up for it.
“It was like, ‘Hey, volleyball’s a spring sport … I’m tall … Maybe I should at least try my hand at it and have some fun.’”
Henchy, the son of Wendy and R.J. Henchy, began to take the sport seriously after his high school debut at the Thunderdome.
“Any time you get those little bits of opportunity to play above your capacity, and that acknowledgement of your potential, it feeds into that,” he said.
He was the starting quarterback for the Ventura JV football team as a sophomore. He was even promoted to the varsity to experience the playoffs.
But he soon realized that volleyball was his future.
“I liked playing football,” he said, “but I was also almost as tall as I am now (6-foot-7) and I weighed only about 181, 185 pounds.
“I was so thin that every hit I took rattled my body.”
Henchy quit football to devote himself fully to hitting volleyballs.
“I was in club volleyball by the end of my sophomore year,” he said.
He won Channel League most valuable player honors as a senior while also gaining selection to the All-CIF Southern Section Division 1 Team.
Henchy served for two years as team captain at Ohio State, finishing among the school’s top 20 in career kills, aces, solo blocks and points, before heading to Greece to play professional volleyball.
“Up until that pro season, I was still thinking, ‘Hey, I’m going to do marketing or advertising, or maybe end up in sales, something general,’” he said.
His experience in Greece, however, prompted a pivot toward coaching.
“I wanted to present and give a better experience in the style of coaching than I’d had in that professional season,” Henchy said.
“My whole family — both parents and a bunch of aunts, uncles and grandparents — were teachers, and so it felt right in terms of what purpose I wanted to have to my life.
“I’d also just had an injury, and I was doing long distance with my future wife and I didn’t know if I wanted to keep doing that.”
Entitled Coach
He returned to Ohio State as a volunteer assistant coach to help the Buckeyes win the 2017 NCAA men’s volleyball championship.
He tucked another NCAA championship under his belt the following year as a graduate assistant for the men’s team at Division III Springfield College.
But volunteer and graduate assistant coaching doesn’t pay the bills. Women’s volleyball offered more opportunities, with 348 colleges sponsoring Division I programs. Only 30 play men’s volleyball.
“I was in a serious long-term relationship and I couldn’t continue to grind it out much longer,” Henchy said. “I’d done a volunteer year and two years of grad school, not making any money.”
Henchy switched to the women’s game with coaching stints at American University, James Madison and Penn State.
“Buying an engagement ring was the first thing I did with my first paycheck,” he said.
“My mom actually fronted me the money. I was like, ‘I’ll pay you back as soon as I get the money from working camps.’”
He and wife Ally, his girlfriend since his sophomore year at Ohio State, are now the parents of a 3-year-old son, Calvin.
He doesn’t see a huge difference between the abilities of his Gauchos and those who played for the Nittany Lions’ 2024 NCAA championship team.
“The biggest gap is mostly between the ears,” Henchy said. “We have players who physically can be All-Americans.
“So much of the difference is what they’ve been told in the past decade of their life in this sport, and how they’re built up, and how their beliefs are fed.”
The Big West Conference coaches picked UCSB to finish third behind Cal Poly and Long Beach State in this year’s league race.
The Mustangs reached the NCAA Sweet 16 last year after beating both No. 5 seed BYU and No. 4 USC.
“There is some room for us to grow on the athleticism side,” Henchy said. “The exciting part for me is believing that Santa Barbara is a place where we can bring those athletes.”
The Gauchos return an emerging star in Gabi Martinez, a 5-foot-11 sophomore outside hitter from Katy, Texas.
She was voted by the league coaches as last season’s Big West Freshman of the Year and was picked last week to the conference’s All-Preseason Team.
Other experienced returnees are senior defensive specialist Cortni Youngblood, UCSB’s digs leader last year; senior outside hitter Emma McDermott; and setters Milan Rex, a senior, and Ayva Ostovar, a sophomore.
“Those contributors coming back are definitely significant for us,” Henchy said. “They know the conference well … They know what it takes to win in the conference.”
Players of Import
The Gauchos did lose several starters to the NCAA transfer portal.
Eva Travis, a sophomore All-Big West outside hitter, departed for Wisconsin. Sophomore middle Jordyn Johnson headed south to UCLA.
“My first texts and calls were to the team, but my next group to text were those five transferring from the team,” Henchy said. “Jordyn was still on the roster at that point but her visits had already been scheduled.
“My sense is she was kind of a foot out the door by the time we talked, although I don’t think there was any ill will or anything.”
All of UCSB’s incoming transfers kept their commitments after Henchy’s hire.
They included Auburn Tomkinson, a 6-5 senior outside hitter from Carlsbad. She ranked third in both kills and blocks for Illinois last season.
“She’s a pretty impressive attacker,” Henchy said. “She’s also a good blocker, a smart blocker, but the height that she attacks from — the range that she attacks with — are certainly a unique layer.
“She’s also been a good leader for us. Credit to her for how she operates off the court and how the players see her.”
Tomkinson was voted along with Youngblood and Rex as team captains last spring.
Also transferring to UCSB last spring were 6-foot junior outside hitter Sophia Wendlick from Creighton and 5-10 sophomore setter Ava Zamora from Stonybrook.
Reilly Goueth, a 6-1 middle who played two seasons at New York University, was added to the roster after a tryout last spring. She had quit playing volleyball after transferring to UCSB a year ago.
“She wanted to be closer to home and was just finishing up her degree, but she’d grown closer with the team,” Henchy said.
“We needed another middle, and we were like, ‘OK, if this is what you look like after not playing for a year and a half, imagine where we could get you if we get to train you.’”
Bella Mathis, a 6-foot senior middle from Belmont University; Danica Rach, a 6-2 junior outside from Boston College; and Emery Tubbs, a 6-1 sophomore middle from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, all joined the team during summer workouts.
UCSB had no high school recruits until Charlie Condron, its new associate head coach, noticed that a top outside hitter from Arizona — Selah Wadsworth of Scottsdale Christian Academy — had backed out of her commitment to Georgia State.
“They had a coaching change, too, and she reopened her recruiting process in March,” Henchy said. “Charlie happened to see that and we reached out and moved on it pretty quick.
“Selah came on a visit and liked what we were talking about with the focus of our team.”
The new coach spoke of building a volleyball family at UCSB. He set that into motion by arranging meetings between the coaches and each player “to just chat about everything but volleyball.”
“We made that a priority, and it’ll stay a priority,” Henchy said. “We’re actually starting those again next week.
“The connection for them to know us more wholly, I think, just helps the same way we want them to be bonded.
“We want our bonds with them to be strong so that the trust is there … that they know a little more deeply about where I’m coming from as a coach.”
His own Ventura family was a big reason why he brought his wife, Ally, and Calvin back to his old stomping grounds last spring.
“I was away from the West Coast for close to 15 years,” Henchy said. “I knew that I’d like to be a head coach, so every move was dictated by that goal.
“I hoped it to be somewhere that I’d want to stay for a long time, or at least lead me to the next best thing.
“A school close to family would be a dream come true.”
And a recurring dream at the Thunderdome, at that.
