Greenville, NC (U-WIRE) -- ECU head volleyball coach Chris Rushing opened practice last week, marking his first practice as head coach at ECU. Rushing took over as the team's head coach Feb. 25, after former head coach Colleen Munson left for Western Michigan.

Rushing was born and raised in Livermore, California, a city in the northern part of the state. Rushing was first interested in volleyball back in high school. While watching a few of his friends play on their volleyball team, Rushing was invited to play.

"From that moment on, I just fell in love with the sport," said Rushing.

"Through friends in high school and it just got more and more serious as I went on,"

While in college at Brigham Young University, Rushing still remained as interested as ever in the sport of volleyball. Like most college students Rushing was still unsure of his future. He decided to go in and talk to his college head coach about the possibility of coaching volleyball.

"We had a big discussion and I asked my coach a lot of questions about what was involved with coaching and the salaries that were out there," Rushing said.

"I liked the answers that he gave me."

After Rushing's playing career he went on to become an assistant for the BYU men's team, his lone stint as a coach for men's volleyball. After his time at BYU, Rushing knew that coaching was exactly what he wanted to do.

He went on to stay in state for the next six or so years, coaching at both Utah Valley State in and landing his first head-coaching job at Dixie College (St. George, Utah). In 1996-97, Rushing made his first move out of state when he went to coach at Arkansas State, compiling a 45-21 record as an assistant under head coach Craig Cummings during the school's first two years as a Division I program. He then moved one for his second head-coaching job at the University of Tennessee at Martin in 1998.

At UT Martin, his team captured two Ohio Valley Conference regular season championships. He also led his team to the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history and posted an overall record of 110-99 before coming to ECU.

Rushing's girls at UT Martin were also just as successful off the floor as on it. Rushing has coached 13 All-OVC players and one Academic All-American. His teams have combined to post an average 3.5 grade point average the last three years and his 2003 team put up a 3.57, which ranked fourth among the nation's Division I women's volleyball programs as decided by the American Volleyball Coaches Association.

Having only been to practice for one week now, Rushing is excited about the talent he sees on the team.

"We have some good talent, the players work hard and I am really excited about the future," coach Rushing said.

As far as the team's future, Rushing believes that the team can turn around from last year's 11-18 record.

"It is all about recruiting, all about how you train your players, and all about the players mental game is," he said.

"Those are the three biggest components."

Rushing feels he can bring a lot to the ECU volleyball program.

"I feel I bring proven success with my past teams, not only with the win-loss record but also academically," the two-time OVC coach of the year said.

"I think I am a good recruiter I think I have a good eye for talent and I can bring out that talent in the players. I am looking to win conference championships and going to the NCAA tournament. I really believe that this is a place that we can build and make a really good volleyball program."

(C) 2004 East Carolinian via U-WIRE