KU volleyball coach Ray Bechard waves to the crowd on Wednesday Dec. 9, 2015, as the team left form Horejsi Family Athletics center, and boarded a bus to the airport, as the Jayhawks head to San Diego for the Sweet 16, against Loyola Marymount on Friday.

The particulars of how the final, vital piece of Ray Bechard’s coaching staff came into place revealed a lot about how Kansas University has risen to volleyball prominence in recent years. Everybody played a part in making it happen.

Young, eager Todd Chamblerain, former Ball State volleyball standout, was in his first year working for head coach Bechard. Chamberlain bumped into Laura “Bird” Kuhn, then an assistant at University of Miami, on a recruiting trip and urged her to contact Bechard about an opening on his staff.

“We brought in three candidates, and it came down to two,” Bechard said. “Of all the people who met the two, I think they were split about who we should go after, and I said, ‘Guys, it’s not even close. It’s not even close.'”

With years comes wisdom, and Bechard had enough of it to see that Bird was “exactly what we needed.”

Laura Kuhn

Bechard said he was convinced of that because of the “conversations I had with her about volleyball, about managing people and about where she wanted to get to.”

Bechard is in his 18th year at Kansas, Chamberlain his sixth and Kuhn her fifth. The Jayhawks face Loyola Marymount on the campus of University of San Diego in a regional semifinal Friday night, KU’s second trip to the Sweet 16 in three years.

Bechard lets his coaches coach and is genuinely effusive in his praise of them.

“Bird and Todd are extremely talented,” Bechard said. “They’re not that far removed from competitive experience themselves, and they bring that with them every day to practice. Bird was a high-level player. Todd was a high-level player, and they have certain expectations of the kids.”

When they push them too hard, Bechard lets them know it’s time to ease off the gas.

“I think he really values our opinion,” Chamberlain said. “When we’re playing in practice, when we’re scheming against an opponent, when we’re talking about recruits that we like, he listens to our opinion. We talk about it as a staff. He’s really allowed us to express our opinions on ways that we think the program can be better. Not all coaches are that way. It’s been amazing that he’s allowed us to grow by letting us be creative and open-minded and become our own coach.”

Before saying yes to Bechard, Kuhn needed to know she would have input on more than just recruiting. She needed to know she would be involved in planning practices and helping to call plays. Otherwise, why leave a good job?

Kuhn’s most obvious influence in elevating the program has come via recruiting. Kansas appealed to her enough, so why wouldn’t it appeal to national recruits? It has.

“I think the biggest thing when I first got here, and I talked to coach B about this, just the way I recruited when I started coaching, especially at Miami, I was nationwide, I never pigeon-holed, never said, ‘I’m at Miami, I have to stick with Florida or only seek out this region,'” Kuhn said. “When I got here, it was pretty regional, and they wanted to stay in the Midwest. At that point, I was, like, ‘I think we need to go all over and get the best kids we can get.'”

The staff mined terrific Texas talent in the Class of 2014 and has done well in Kansas City with the rich Class of 2016. Kuhn was the lead recruiter for sophomore superstar Kelsie Payne and most of the other top talents in the program.

“Bird is a high-level communicator, and she can create dialogue which makes sense to players in practice and in a match situation,” Bechard said. “Some coaches can play it, but they can’t explain it to players like she can. So she’s a high-level trainer, high-level communicator. And then Todd, he comesfrom an enthusiastic emotional side where he thinks if you go all-out, good things are going to happen and you can compete. It’s been great to see his maturation.”

Bird’s style reflects the way she was coached as a young basketball and volleyball star from Tiffin, Ohio.

“You call it consequence-based, just pressure,” Kuhn said. “Everything you do, there is pressure. There’s going to be a consequence if you don’t get this goal. You set goals, you reach them. You don’t reach them, you get this. The mental check that it’s not really that hard.”

It’s a method, Kuhn said, that works better with women than men.

“We talk about how females compete versus males,” Kuhn said. “How males can self-motivate and females need a little more drive, because with females, it’s all about the team. If you miss your serve, the whole team runs, and you don’t.”

Sophomore Ainise Havili called it “the worst feeling ever” and, therefore, “the best punishment. It gets really stressful.”

Which prepares a closely knit group for the pressure that comes their way in matches. Clearly it works.

Bechard won back-to-back conference coach-of-the-year honors in 2012 and 2013 and again this season.

Which coach deserves the most credit for the KU volleyball turn-around? When nobody cares who gets the credit, nobody bothers to ask that question. It’s a staff that works as one and works as well together as the players they coach do on match night.