Shawn Olmstead and the BYU Cougars are the talk of the NCAA Division 1 women’s volleyball tournament.
Shawn Olmstead has BYU in the NCAA women’s volleyball semifinals.
The Carpinteria High grad has the unseeded Cougars in the national semifinals for only the second time in program history. They are only the third unseeded team in tournament history to make the Final Four. They’ll take on No. 2 Texas on Thursday in Oklahoma City. No. 1 Stanford and No. 5 Penn State play in the other semifinal. The championship match is Saturday.
Olmstead joins a trio of coaching legends in Oklahoma City. Penn State’s Russ Rose is in his 36th year of coaching and has won six national titles; Stanford’s John Dunning is a 30-year veteran with four titles and Jerritt Elliott of Texas has 14 years of experience and one title.
The only son of Rick and Trudy Olmstead, Shawn was raised on volleyball. His father, Rick, was a successful coach at Santa Barbara High (where he coached Karch Kiraly) and City College. He has officiated volleyball at the collegiate level and on the AVP pro beach volleyball tour for several years.
Shawn was a standout player at Carpinteria High, earning All-CIF honors as a junior and a senior. He still holds the school record for kills in match with 47. He continued his playing career and education at BYU, where he played on two national championship teams in 2001 and 2004.
Two of Shawn’s sisters, Laci and Heather, played at BYU and Utah State, respectively. Heather is a member of his coaching staff.
Shawn grew up with six sisters, and Heather believes that living in that environment has played a part in his coaching success at BYU.
“Shawn has a pretty good pulse on the girls here already,” Heather told the Provo Daily Herald’s Web site, CougarBlue.com. “Because he has six sisters and was the only boy in our family, he probably understands females a little better than the average guy. I’m just here to help mediate between those girls and give him advice. He’s pretty open to feedback and has a good sense for what needs to be done with the girls.”
Olmstead has been getting it done since he became the head coach four years ago. He’s taken the Cougars to three straight Sweet 16s and now the Final Four. He reached the 100 –win milestone when BYU upset Arizona in a second-round match in Tucson two weeks ago.
As for coaching styles, Heather said her brother tells the players to have fun and compete like crazy.
“Shawn’s like a big kid out there,” she told CougarBlue, “but he wants to win more than anybody. He has that competitive edge in him but he tries to keep it loose and fun for the kids.”
He started growing a mustache during the playoff run — he couldn’t grow a beard because BYU’s Honor Code prohibits beards.
A photo of the mustachioed Olmstead celebrating after the Arizona win went out on social media and caught fire. It carried the caption: “The OTS (Olmstead Tourney ‘Stache) is out in full force.”
Shawn didn’t see the photo but he received lots of feedback about it.
“I don’t even have a Facebook or Twitter account,” he told CougarBlue. “Everyone was telling me the picture was all over social media and on the AVCA (American Volleyball Coaches Association) Twitter, and I thought: ‘Oh, no, all the national coaches are on there. They’re probably thinking, “Who is this punk kid from Provo?’”
The punk kid from Carpinteria is now on the national stage with a team that’s ready to compete for a national title.
