Call it modesty. Call it class. Either way, after Terrapin volleyball head coach Janice Kruger notched her 700th career victory last Saturday night, she simply shook hands with the opposing team and smiled.
Kruger has been shaking hands for 27 years and has four ACC and American Volleyball Coaches Association Region Coach of the Year selections. She is seventh all-time in NCAA Division I wins, has brought home four ACC championships (two tournament titles in the past two years) and appeared in six NCAA Tournaments.
“Her feat in her 700th win is something that is unparalleled,” said Davis Whitfield, ACC Assistant Commissioner for Championships. “We are certainly fortunate to have her and so is the University of Maryland.
“As a coach, as a person and as a representative of the ACC, she certainly is a model we can all look to in regards to success and conducting a program with the utmost consistency,” Whitfield said.
Kruger has been consistent to the tune of 19 wins per season over the last 17 years.
Yet when it came time to bask in her achievements, Kruger deflected the spotlight.
“I think that anytime you reach any type of milestone like that, there are so many factors that play a part of that success,” Kruger said. “I had great teachers and coaches who instilled important aspects of coaching in me. I learned along the way from many great people.”
The list of these “great people,” she said, begins in Nebraska with a junior high chemistry teacher, Mr. Beardshear. She couldn’t remember his first name.
“He loved the game and always did whatever he could do to get the edge,” Kruger said. “He worked with me a lot and was responsible for me becoming a scholarship player at the University of Nebraska.”
As captain of the Nebraska volleyball team, Kruger fell under the guidance of head coach Patricia Sullivan, whom Kruger described as one of her favorite people in the world.
“In some ways, Janice was a coach’s dream,” Sullivan said. “She’s incredibly competitive, fearless, willing to do anything at all … and she can pick up things quickly. That’s probably one of the things that makes her strong as a coach.”
After graduating from Nebraska in 1977, Kruger got her first head coaching position at Platte Technical Community College in Columbus, Neb.
After a 23-9 season that qualified her team for the national junior college tournament, she was named head coach at Nebraska-Omaha, where she amassed a 352-96-6 record over nine seasons and made four trips to the NCAA Division II Final Four.
Then, in 1988, Kruger became a Terp — an event that would change ACC volleyball history. Just two years after her arrival, the Terps won their first ACC title.
“She has the ability to motivate you as a player,” said Nicole Welch, a setter for the Terps from 1990 to 1993. “She can be intense and get on you when she needs to, but also can have some fun and goof around when she needs to.”
But beyond the accolades and victories, Kruger said her most rewarding accomplishment has been seeing former players go on to coach.
Welch is one such example, who went 11-5 with the Hurricanes last season as head coach for the University of Miami — second in the ACC.
“I haven’t had a lot of time to watch a lot of my former players coach, but when I do, it’s always a real treat,” Kruger said. “When the time comes that I’m not going to do this anymore, I’m definitely going to go watch them more.”
But the time for retirement seems far in the future. Kruger will start towards 800 wins tonight against Pittsburgh in the Pittsburgh Invitational.
“I think I love the energy in the gym,” Kruger said. “And I think being in college athletics is special, to be able to be in an atmosphere that’s always about winning and doing your best and competing.
“A lot of things do stay the same over the years. But there are also a lot of things that are different, and those things keep a real special situation here every year.”
One thing that is unchanging for Terps volleyball under Kruger is success. That, and plenty of modesty.
Contact reporter Jason Fraley at fraleydbk@gmail.com.
