1974-1975
Gary Mullin Letter
Dear Ted and Brian,
I have been meaning to send information from the early days to supplement your records, as well as a little money which I am finally able to do. I’ll tell you the long version which you may well reduce to one or two sentences for posterity.
I was an all-state basketball and track guy in high school and decided on basketball for Yale. In the second year several of us quit due to the coach often being absent from practice. I went to track in mid-winter. Bob Geigengach was the coach, and also a two time U.S. Olympic coach. After a month he put me on the pre-Olympic team as one of the top 50 quarter milers in the east, and I promptly blew a hamstring against West Point. It had happened before and the doctors told me if I continued to run I would likely do permanent damage, so that was the end of track. I was looking for roommates to move off campus and I ran into these two volleyball guys, Mike Palm and Bill Schlaff–class of 1973. I decided to room with them in a house on Howard avenue by the water and they talked me into trying volleyball. I was hooked immediately and asked them and other team mates to work with me to learn the fundamentals. The team practiced 3 days a week in the fall, but I worked with someone at least 6 days, usually 4 or 5 hours at a time. We were very succesful that year and I was lucky enough to make the all-league, all-New England, all-East, and 2nd team all-America squads. I also tried out for and made the US team to the World University games in Moscow. Mike Palm wanted to go to Delaney Kiphuth, Athletic Director, to ask him to make volleyball a varsity sport. It was club for us like it is for you. We scrounged for every nickel we could–took our own cars (we only had 2), and the only thing Yale did for us was to give us the basketball players shorts when they were too worn out for them. He asked me to go with him for moral support. Kiphuth said no way, but was impressed with some of the press we received.
We were not nationally ranked, but a number of sports-writers had discovered us. We did become ranked the next year, and mid-season I again asked for varsity status. We were turned down. We had become nationally ranked, so I asked Kiphuth if there was any hurdle we could overcome to be considered for varsity. He said if we made the NCAA tournament he would make us varsity. Then, the tournament consisted of 4 teams-the winners of the 4 U.S. regions. We lost to Tennessee in the quarters and that was that. At the end of the season I again approached Kiphuth and he said the deal would hold for the next year. I told the guys, including fish, and they asked me to coach since I was graduating.
I said I would and we worked 4-6 hours a day from September. We worked on all kinds of things we had never used-double crosses with double quicks, back row quicks, shoots off triple crosses, Tsunagi Transformations, and all kinds of stuff. Mostly we worked on the first pass, and got to the point we could really run good stuff because of very reliable passing. Well we won the Eastern Regional tournament and went on to the NCAA’s as your comment in the 75-76 archives indicates. Delaney kept his word, and we were varsity until title-9 when a number of programs were moved to club to make room for women varsity sports.
If you come across anyone else who was named All-American I would enjoy hearing about them. I do not believe the women have had anyone yet, but I do not know about the men. Oh, by the way, all of us love your updates even though you seldom hear from any of us. We all enjoyed playing and enjoy hearing about the current team.
Best of Luck,
Gary