Blog Post: Quinn Parlays Vietnam Service Into CIF championship for Oak Park Volleyball

Patrick Quinn may never have become a volleyball coach if it hadn't been for the Vietnam War.

Quinn, who coached the Oak Park High boys' volleyball team to a CIF championship - the Eagles defeated Corona Del Mar for the title on May 19 - had ony dabbled in volleyball prior to being drafted by the army.

"My high school didn't have a volleyball team," said Quinn, who played basketball and ran cross country and track at Culver City High. "I got drafted into the Vietnam War and one day my unit was playing volleyball and they asked me to get in there. I wound up on my army volleyball team."

Quinn, who was a paratrooper for the 82nd airborne division in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, never got sent to Vietnam. "I got lucky," he said. But he did develop into an All-Army volleyball player and he said he was the army's best player for two years.

"Volleyball was the only thing that I really had to focus on for eight hours a day," he said. He parlayed his time in the service into a volleyball scholarship at San Diego State University. He became a team captain there and even trained briefly with the U.S. national team.

After leaving the sport for many years, he returned as a coach.

"The game of volleyball had changed quite a bit from when I played to today's game," Quinn said. "So I focused on bringing myself up to date...when Oak Park volleyball came along, I thought I had something to offer and I took the challenge."

Quinn, who also coaches the girls' team at Oak Park, said that along with elation, there was relief in earning the CIF title this season, as it was the fourth time in five years that he led the Eagles to the final match.

"It was very much a relief for me more than anything else," he said. "That not only did we get there, but I was able to get the boys to play their best when it counted."

Oak Park had lost in the CIF championship finals in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

"You knock on the door enough, it opens," Quinn said with a chuckle.

He said that one thing he noticed about his team during the playoffs was just how self-assured a group it was.

"They had a lot of confidence in themselves and that's one of the things I learned about my team this year," Quinn said. "They weren't intimidated by anybody. And I thought maybe they would be."

After winning the CIF title, 3-1 in games over Corona Del Mar, Oak Park came within a whisker of adding a state championship. In the state semifinals, Oak Park traveled to San Diego to play Westview, then the 3rd-ranked team in the country. The Eagles won in three straight games.

Oak Park then lost a five-game thriller to Mira Costa in the state finals. The Eagles had four match points before succumbing 20-18 in the fifth game.

Quinn said his team was devastated by the loss because of how close Oak Park came to winning. But he also said, "They didn't back down at all." And by the time the Eagles had their banquet a week later, spirits were once again high.

"You're going to look back on that match and you're going to be proud of what you've accomplished," he told his players during the banquet. "When you lose 20-18 in Game 5 against the best team in the nation - there were no losers in that match."

Oak Park will return only five players from this year's team. Ten seniors will graduate.They will leave a legacy that will be tough to match.

"This was a special group," Quinn said. "The smartest group I've ever had. They've been through a lot together. They're great young men that will do well no matter what they do in life."

And he added, speaking about the players he may have never met had it not been for the war in Vietnam, "I love those guys."