by Braeden Melton | Assistant Coach | Director of Volleyball Operations
When you look up the definition of a coach it seems so simple: a person who trains an athlete or a team of athletes.
But when a coach looks at more than just the X’s & O’s and attempts to play a role in their athlete’s lives off of the court, you find the ones who are truly special.
Jon Ellmann is one of those coaches. I’ve been on his sideline for the past three seasons at UW-Oshkosh, and I’ve been able to witness how truly special this guy is. So I’d like to tell you about it.
My path to UW-Oshkosh was, in a word, sudden. I had only been coaching volleyball for four seasons at Waupun and Winneconne High School — so coaching college volleyball had never even crossed my mind.
Jon called me during the summer of 2017 and straight up asked me if I had any interest in helping out with the Women’s NCAA Team at UWO. Without too much hesitation, I accepted and, unbeknownst to me, my whole perspective on coaching was about to change.
The main thing that I’ve learned from being a part of this program is Who > What. Sometimes it doesn’t even seem like we coach volleyball — due to the bond that Jon is able to create with his staff and, more importantly, with our players, we’re just a group of people who like spending time with each other… that love volleyball.
The amount of time I’ve sat in on player meetings or recruit visits just listening to how he communicates with people has painted a great picture for how I can live my life and has provided a tutorial or a blueprint on how I would eventually like to run my own program in the future.
The information I’ve been able to soak up is something I will be forever grateful for.
Each and every one of our players in the program see Jon as more than just Coach Ellmann. It is super cliche, but we are all a big family and would go to great lengths to help each other out at any moment; Jon has been the catalyst of that.
He talks about hand placement on your block and why you didn’t dig that ball plenty, but he also cares about how that exam went, and oh yeah, “Hey ______, how’s your mom/dad/anyone in your life really doing?” He just freaking cares.
Those are all normal conversations in our space. Nothing is forced — and there are no empty questions. Sentiment combined with intent on making sure that the person, rather than the player, is in a good spot in every facet.
His demeanor on the sideline is what stands out to me the most, he’s stoic but not lacking emotion — waltzing the sideline, analyzing the match rotation by rotation, all while creating the formula that will put us in the best position to be successful.
His huddles are concise but impactful. The ability to inspire with technical instruction is truly special to watch, because when you can tell a player in a huddle that I need you to do this very specific thing in this very specific situation so we can score/win/whatever, to have that player confidently respond with “Ok, got it.” takes a legit amount of trust. And trust is what our program is built on. Whether that player goes out onto the court and does that very specific thing, or if they don’t, is ultimately irrelevant — he trusts them to try again on the next point.
Jon is always looking to get better. You want those people in your life, so every day that I get to be on Coach Ellmann’s team, I try to take advantage of it.
I was just some kid that didn’t know a ton about the game when he brought me on, but in such a short time I feel like I’ve learned so much about volleyball and, more importantly, life. I’m just really excited for what’s in store for uwovb.
Jon — thank you.
