Sample retires as Chatham coach

Jacksonville High School volleyball won’t have Larry Sample to kick it around anymore. That goes for the rest of the Central State Eight, too. On Wednesday, Sample resigned his coaching position at Chatham Glenwood, telling the Springfield State Journal-Register that “it’s time to move on.”

This, by the way, is the third “retirement” story I’ve done on Sample in the 10 years I’ve been in Jacksonville.

It’s more of a commentary than a story, though. I’ve not been able to track down the legendary coach tonight, but this deserves some kind of mention, so bear with me. If this is indeed the end of Sample’s coaching career, he’ll finish with an overall record of 672 wins and 150 losses, including a mark of 588-121 from 1979 to 1999 at Jacksonville High, where he coached the Crimsons to four Class AA Elite Eight appearances, including a state championship in 1988 and a third-place finish 10 years later, in 1998. Sample’s final team at JHS, a super-sectional qualifier, went 37-2.

Sample resigned from coaching volleyball in 2000 to become Jacksonville High’s assistant principal and athletic director. His accomplishments as A.D. alone were dizzying; he renovated or upgraded the facilities for almost every sporting program at JHS. These improvements included new hardwood floors at both the JHS Bowl and the West gymnasium, a new ceiling-hanging scoreboard at the Bowl, a new digital scoreboard and press box improvements at Kraushaar-Rosenberger Field, new press boxes and playing field enhancements for JHS softball and baseball, nicer tables for the press row at the JHS Bowl and, I must add, fabulous food spreads for reporters at football games and media events.

As the A.D. at JHS, Sample took care of the facilities and the athletes, but he didn’t forget the media. I never attended a home basketball game in his tenure when he didn’t personally deliver popcorn and Pepsi (or water, if I desired) to my seat. His attention to detail, his efficiency, his excellence, are what I will remember about him if I don’t get to see him around anymore.

Though he was a peerless A.D., Sample ached to coach volleyball again. He bristled at District 117’s unwritten policy that administrators cannot also serve as coaches, and when his handpicked successor, Shannon Keller, resigned from coaching volleyball after the 2002 season, Sample tried to take the reins again. In fact, he tried twice; actively pursuing the vacancy in the spring of 2003 (the board voted against his return, but it was hardly unanimous) and waiting passively in the wings in the summer of 2004, when the school board fired, then weeks later re-hired, boys’ basketball coach Dan Sparrow and volleyball coach Chris Bourn, who is now an assistant at Routt.

Finally, Chatham Glenwood gave Sample the opportunity to return to coaching and he seized it, inheriting for three years a record-breaking, all-state player in Hannah Werth. Together, Sample and Werth combined to lead Glenwood to an 84-29 overall record from 2006-08, including two outright CS8 titles, three regional championships and a super-sectional appearance last year.

Is this really the end for Sample as a volleyball coach? Personally, I’m skeptical. At this point, I can’t tell if I’m being hopeful or cynical. Sample told the State Journal-Register that coaching volleyball is “a younger, more energetic person’s job.” But then again, he said his immediate plans are to relocate to a warmer clime (Florida or Arizona) so that he can play softball. That’s hardly an activity for someone who plans on slowing down, and you’d have a hard time finding any 61-year-old man in better shape than Sample is in.

People in Jacksonville, especially those around the volleyball program, will interpret Sample’s timing in a variety of ways. They’ll speculate that either he has designs on returning to coach the Crimsons yet again, or that with Werth finally graduating, and loads of talent returning at JHS, he’d rather not be around next year to coach against them.

But it’s all speculation, and nothing more. If I know Sample, there’s a part of him that would relish the challenge of building a post-Werth winner at Chatham, just to show the CS8 that he can. This is one reason why his resignation surprises me. As for having designs to return at JHS, I’ll believe it when I see it. The man’s been burned too many times, and current coach Paula Stewart has the program heading in the right direction.

Stewart believes Sample is ready to lay aside his coaching whistle for good.

“My take has always been that Sample was ready for retirement,” Stewart said. “I talked to him a little bit about it at the CS8 meeting on Sunday. He’s been very private about it. Nobody expected him to come back and coach at Chatham. I think he’s really finished and that he wants to go play softball in Florida.”