To hear senior outside hitter Savannah Thompson tell it, every day at practice with Marist coach Jordan Vidovic was like the first day of preseason.
Full of optimism. Full of energy.
“You know, some days people come into work and they just don’t feel like doing it,” Thompson said. “They tell you do this or do that while they just walk around.
“That was never the case with coach Vidovic. He was always there being involved with the drills and making sure every day was a chance to help us get better. We knew that his goal was the same as ours.”
Together, they made Marist history by winning the program’s first Class 4A state championship.
The Daily Southtown 2017 Girls Volleyball Coach of the Year said coming to work raring to go was never a problem.
“Those girls made our jobs so easy this year,” Vidovic said. “The way they carried themselves, the way they handled themselves … it was so cool to see as a coach the things that you talk about really come together.”
Vidovic struck gold in his second season as the girls coach. In the spring, he will enter his fourth season on the boys side, hoping to improve on two sectional titles.
Volleyball has been a staple in his life right from the start.
Vidovic’s mom, Pam, was the boys volleyball coach at Mount Carmel from 1992-2000.
“I was always around the game,” Vidovic said. “The passion for the game has always been there.”
Vidovic was the starting setter at Brother Rice, piling up more than 3,000 career assists and earning Daily Southtown Player of the Year honors as a senior in 2005.
“It was an awesome four years playing for Br. Paul (Ickes),” Vidovic said. “Brother Rice was a great fit for me. I learned a lot there about being highly competitive. We were always one of the top teams around.”
During his college career at Lewis, he compiled 2,049 assists, and as a senior was selected to the MIVA Academic All-Conference team.
Following college, Vidovic became a girls club coach at Michio. He made the switch to high school when Marist hired Julie Popp-Hopkins to be the girls coach in 2013.
Vidovic was an assistant to Popp-Hopkins from 2013-15 before she resigned and he took the position.
“I remember the day she got hired and we talked about me being her assistant,” Vidovic said. “I had known her through club volleyball, and I was 100 percent on board to start this with her.
“We talked for a long time on how we wanted to go about things and what we wanted this program to look like down the road. It’s kind of at that point now, what we had been looking forward to.”
In 2017, Marist was not only one of the most successful teams in the country. It was also among the most resilient.
The RedHawks came from a game down to win in three nine times. They were 11-0 in three-game matches.
“That’s all toughness, that’s all grit,” Vidovic said. “From day one, we wanted to do everything we possibly could to be ready for those tough situations.
“We stuck with weight training more than we ever have. We were lifting hard three days before the state championship. We felt it was going to take us over the top.”
Senior outside hitter Maggie Meyer most definitely liked the view.
“Coach meant everything to us,” she said. “He helped our team grow and helped us to become the state champions that we are. He developed us since our freshman year to our senior year. He helped us to grow in such a great way.
“We wouldn’t have been the same team without him.”
Twitter @tbaranek