By Christal Veras–

Over the years the volleyball team has begun to earn a reputation for hard work and success on the court. Changes this year will add to that reputation. The varsity team gets a new head coach, last year’s junior varsity coach, Mr. Minaya.

“I am very proud, I feel like I put a lot of work and I feel that I earned being the head coach. There are a lot of behind the scene details to take care of. However, I feel that the reward is worth the wait and effort,” said Mr. Minaya.

There is also a new junior varsity coach, Mr. Delcarmen. Minaya and Delcarmen are close friends. They hope to take advantage of their friendship to foster a sense of teamwork between the two teams. In fact, both played volleyball for Passaic when they were students.

Delcarmen said, “It is an honor to be a part of this program that once governed my life and my day to day decisions as an athlete. It is also humbling to work under the man who coached me to bring this program to its former greatness.”
Both coaches are doing their best to make this season great.

“In order to have a better season I have to work with my staff. I believe my staff helps me become better organized and a better head coach. Also game wise I pay attention and my staff helps me pay attention and we make determinations on what we need to fix to allow the girls to improve in their errors or get better for the next game,” Minaya said.

Delcarmen, coaching for the first time, is pushing his team to put forth their best effort, all the time.

“First off I am showing these girls a side of volleyball that they have never seen before. By treating junior varsity as if they were a varsity program, it will increase my expectation of the feeder program for the upcoming years,” said Coach Pablo.

Although the volleyball girls have had a rough start they are willing to leave that behind them and only learn from their mistakes. The focus of these teams is success and hard work, and that should be a winning formula.