Posted: Feb 09, 2012
Starting in 1995 as assistant coach of the team, Richard moved into the head coach role in 1998 and has been in the position since. He took on an additional role this year as the Varsity Reds athletic director, which will become his sole role after the volleyball season ends.
'It's going to be extremely tough (being off the court),' he said. 'I've coached this team for 17 years and during those years I've been coaching provincial teams (in the summer) for 14 of those years.
'That meant 10 months of my year I was actively coaching a team and that's all going to go away. It's going to be a tremendous adjustment, but I knew what I was getting into (when I applied for athletic director job).' Richard helped bring the CIS women's volleyball championships to Fredericton for two seasons in 2008 and 2009 and lead the Varsity Reds to two AUS championship titles.
'It's an event (CIS championships) that we hadn't seen in Atlantic Canada for 20 years when we hosted it, and I don't know when we'll see it back again,' he said. 'To expose our area, our region and our programming to that level of volleyball for two straight years and the excitement that went around that was pretty special for sure.' He made sure not to downplay the two championship banners.
'Being able to go to Laval last year and play in front of a couple thousand people on the opening night against Laval, not that it was an easy matchup, but it was pretty special playing the host team on the opening night right after the opening ceremonies.' Over his time with the V-Reds, Richard has coached hundreds of athletes. Although he didn't want to leave anyone out, he named a few standouts.
'It's tough to name only a few, but from pure athletic and recognition perspective, Melanie Doucette would be right up there. That is one of the obvious ones. Tanya Paulin right now is playing professional volleyball (in Sweden), which is a first for us (UNB). Jill Blanchard making the national beach team was another first at the time, but you just keep going on and on and you know you're going to leave someone out, so that's as far as I'll go.' UNB has struggled this season, with a 1-14 record heading into weekend road matches at Dal and Saint Mary's, but had a solid six-year run. Before that things were not as successful. Richard says he couldn't have done it without the support of his wife Jennifer and daughter Ali.
'My wife has been a ton of support for me since day one. Our anniversary is in April and the reason why we got married in April was because it was in between volleyball seasons,' he said. 'When my daughter was born it grounded me a lot and makes you be more efficient with your time. I think it made me a better coach because I didn't have the time to stew and overanalyze things.
'Ali has always known all the girls. From the moment she was born there were female volleyball girls at the hospital and that's never changed. She actually sat on our bench for a few matches this year. She's always been around that environment and I wouldn't have it any other way.' After this weekend his focus will switch to finding a new volleyball coach and his athletic director duties. The process for sending out the job posting has been started and Richard hopes to have a new coach hired by the spring.
'After this year and where I'm at (personally) I believe the women's volleyball program needs some new energy and that they will benefit from that new energy. I will use every volleyball connection I have in Canada to make sure we find the best coach possible to fill that role.' Richard knows he can't control much on the court anymore, but hopes to continue to lead the athletics program in the right direction.
'I'll try to continue leading this greater team the best I can, no different than I've tried to lead our women's volleyball team.'