Chapman’s volleyball head coach Mary Cahill reaches 500 career wins

Coach Mary Cahill talks about her experience transitioning to the head coaching position.

In sports, being consistently great over the span of a couple years is incredibly difficult, let alone several decades; achieving that level of success requires strict discipline and vast experience. At Chapman, volleyball head coach Mary Cahill is a prime example of this.

Coach Cahill earned her 500th career win this year in her 32nd season coaching Chapman volleyball. Up until this year, teams coached under Cahill have earned a 500 or better record in 26 of 31 seasons. Back in 2019, Cahill led the Panthers to a 23-6 record before the pandemic hit.

Even with everything she has accomplished, Cahill does not look closely at the numbers. Reaching 500 wins made her think back on her career and what has led her to this point. 

“I don’t really look at how many wins I have and all that; it’s usually match-to-match and how well each team does each year,” Cahill said. “But since it did happen, (and) I didn’t really know when it was really going to happen, It just made me reflect. That’s a lot of time in the gym — a lot of practices. It’s a good milestone for me.”

Cahill attended Orange High School and then Chapman University, where she played volleyball for two years under head coaches Penny Brush and Tom Read. Cahill performed well on the court and in 1985, she was selected as Academic All-America. Her accomplishments as a student-athlete led her to being inducted into the Chapman Athletics Hall of Fame in 2001.

Right after playing, she became an assistant to Read in 1985, briefly coached at El Modena High School and Fullerton College for a year and then was hired by Brush to become head coach of Chapman volleyball in 1989.  In her first two years as a head coach, Cahill immediately found success. She led the Panthers to NCAA Division II tournament appearances in 1989 and 1990. 

Although she had an extensive knowledge around the game of volleyball, Cahill said that it was a process in terms of figuring out things such as logistics, day-to-day operations and communicating effectively to players.

“The volleyball part in the gym was the easy part,” Cahill said. “It was just all the stuff (other than coaching) as being a head coach with travel, paperwork, eligibility and keeping the team together and motivating them. That stuff took a little bit longer than just the actual X’s and O’s of volleyball.”

For Cahill, going from playing the sport to coaching meant seeing the game from two different perspectives. Cahill shifted from seeing the game solely from her lens to seeing the game from the team’s lens, because as a coach she needed to collectively bring the team together and truly understand the roles of each player on the court.

“When you play the sport you just have to know what you have to do, but when you’re coaching, you have to be able to help every position,” Cahill said. “When I played (at Chapman), I was a center, (which) is kind of like quarterback in football, so I knew a little bit more about the game than (just) my position, because that’s what the center has to do.”

Over the course of her career, Cahill has seen the impact that many coaches have had on her ability to coach volleyball, starting from her coaches back in high school and through college. One individual that helped her out during her development was coach Penny Brush.

“Every coach I’ve had has helped me,” Cahill said. “Being a coach at a college takes a little transition period from a player, and I just think that I followed what they did on the court as far as being a leader, and then I leaned on Penny (because) she was (at Chapman).”

During her time coaching volleyball at Chapman, Cahill said she’s enjoyed working with the athletics staff as well as seeing the development of her players during and after their time at Chapman. 

“I love the people I work with here in the athletics department, (and) I enjoy coming to work everyday whether I’m in the gym practicing or in my office working,” Cahill said, “I really enjoy watching a 17, 18-year-old young lady choose Chapman. I meet them on the first day, (and) they’re nervous, scared and (their) eyes (are) wide open. It’s great to see them graduate …. (and then)  come back for alumni games with their families. (I get to) see how they’re progressed in life; I just really enjoy just seeing their growth.”