Meet Poway Titans volleyball coach Charlie Jackson
POWAY, Calif. — Entering his 20th season as head coach of the Poway Titans varsity boys鈥� volleyball team, Charlie Jackson’s coaching style has evolved over the years. One aspect, however, has remained consistent: creating a positive team environment and ensuring each team member is giving value to one another. As a volleyball player himself at Poway High School and college, Jackson wants the players to respect each other’s skills and recognize the efforts they all contribute in practice to help them improve and grow as a team. He also wants his players to have fun. “When they think back on their experience, I want my players to say that they are glad they played volleyball,” he shares, “not focus on the wins and losses.”
Special season with his son
This season is special for Jackson because his middle son, Preston, will play his final high school volleyball season at Poway. No stranger to coaching his own children, Jackson also has a son in college that he coached all four years as well. But the last year of high school for each of his boys is always bittersweet for him. Jackson is close with many incoming senior players, “I’ve known several of them since they were elementary school age and watched them grow up with my son.” Jackson’s youngest son is currently in 8th grade and an avid club volleyball player, so he may have the opportunity to do it all again.
College player gets the coaching bug
After playing four years of volleyball at Poway High School, Jackson earned a position on the UCLA men’s volleyball team as an invited walk-on. “We were three-time national champions during my years on the team, one of them being my senior year鈥攖his was definitely a highlight for me,” he shares, “I am grateful for every moment.”
Jackson is proud to have been a player under legendary Bruins coach Al Scates, who led the volleyball team for 50 years. After earning a degree from UCLA, he also spent one year as a graduate assistant coach with Scates. This experience allowed Jackson to study his coaching style, “I model a lot of what I do strategically after him: how he scouted other teams and prepared game plans.”
Another Bruins strategy Jackson includes in his coaching repertoire is to chart opponents during the games. This gives Jackson strategic real-time information, such as where the other team’s serves are landing and which hitters the setter relies on to get a kill鈥攁n offensive attack that is unreturnable by the opponent. His father, a volunteer coach for the team, handles this vital job during each game.
Strategic coaching honed from his own experience
Jackson takes pride in differentiating how he coaches during practice versus a game. In practice, he focuses on technique: how to improve a player’s swing, or why a player may be unsuccessful in passing. During the game, it鈥檚 all about strategy, “My goal is to continue to give players constructive feedback on strategy during each game,” he adds, “this helps them move on from their errors and focus on the next move.鈥� He also empowers his team to look strategically at each game situation and analyze the opponent鈥攖o celebrate successes but then quickly plan the next move.
Play hard and have fun
Jackson believes if his players enjoy themselves, they will compete at a high level and fight hard for each other. He emphasizes that players won’t always remember all the games they played in a season, but he wants them to remember the team itself and how much fun they had with each other.
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