Chris Cole has been hired as the new varsity volleyball head coach at Wawasee High School.

SYRACUSE – Wawasee volleyball has been heading in the right direction. Chris Cole hopes to guide the program to take the next step.

Cole has been chosen to fill the vacancy left by Jeff Phillips as Wawasee’s new varsity volleyball coach. Cole will greet the program this evening in a meet and greet at WHS and take over the duties of guiding a program that has struggled mightily in Northern Lakes Conference play, but competed with some of the top clubs in the area.

Cole last coached high school volleyball in 2000 at Northwood High School in Irvine, Calif., where he was both the boys and girls varsity coach. Cole lists all of his coaching experience in California save for some local club experience in the Northern Indiana Volleyball Association (formerly Shank U), but has been coaching since 1990.

His high school experience includes several league titles, but his club work has been exceptional. Helping over a dozen athletes reach the collegiate levels, his club teams reached the Junior Olympics National Championship tournament while at Cal Juniors VBC in both 2002 and 2004. Cole has also helped at the Long Beach State University camps and California Volleyball Institute camps for over a dozen years.

A work opportunity, Cole states, is what brought him and his family here to Syracuse and the opportunity to get back into high school coaching couldn’t be passed up.

“I stopped coaching high school due to it not being an option with my work schedule,” Cole said. “I had hoped to have the opportunity to coach a high school program again. When the position opened at Wawasee, I jumped at the opportunity.”

Wawasee has fielded some quality teams in recent years, but has not fared well in conference, having lost its last 19 NLC games going back to 2012. Wawasee won tournament titles at Elwood in 2013 and its own Wawasee Invite in 2014, but Wawasee has not won a sectional title since 1995 or an NLC title since 1983, areas Cole hopes to turn around quickly.

“My objective as the new Wawasee head volleyball coach is the same as my previous positions,” Cole said. “Exposing the youth to the game of volleyball and aiding them in being successful student athletes which in turn helps the high school program be more competitive and successful. One of my goals is to attract more athletes in order to field three competitive levels. I strongly believe that Wawasee has the potential to easily achieve that.”