Kolek's career took a turn and now the Rivier volleyball coach is headed to the GNAC Hall of Fame
Apr. 16—Craig Kolek began coaching to earn extra money to fund his dream of playing professional beach volleyball.
The Nashua resident and Tewksbury, Mass., native's time on the pro tour was brief. His side gig became a historic career.
Kolek, who is in his 26th season coaching the Rivier University men's volleyball team and coached the women's program for 23 years, will be inducted into the Great Northeast Athletic Conference Hall of Fame on Aug. 10 at the Hilton Garden Inn at Logan Airport in Boston.
Kolek became the first coach in NCAA history to reach 400 career wins in both men's and women's volleyball in 2017 and has amassed more than 1,000 combined wins leading both programs. The Rivier men have won nine GNAC championships, made three NCAA Elite Eight appearances and reached the Final Four once. The women won six GNAC titles under Kolek, who coached the program from 1999-2021 and finished with a 490-210 record.
"I think he really deserves it," said Rivier setter Anna Campbell, a senior from Nashua who played for Kolek her first three seasons. "He's been with both of these programs for so long. He's put his heart and soul — countless amount of hours into recruiting and building a solid, family culture and atmosphere with every recruit that he brings in and I don't know any other coach that has put this much effort and time into building this big and successful of a program."
Kolek, 53, started playing volleyball in the backyard at family cookouts. After a leg injury ended his hockey career, Kolek taught himself how to play beach volleyball. Kolek and his friend, Chris Sayer, eventually started considering playing the sport professionally on the two-man circuit.
Sayer and Kolek trained together at Hampton Beach, waited tables during the week and traveled for tournaments on the weekends. They got their first big break in 1995, when they won a qualifying tournament on Cape Cod to receive an invitation to a pro tournament in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. For the next seven years, the duo played semi-professionally and had matches against some of the best players in the country.
"It's a very social-type sport," Kolek said. "For as competitive as it could be, it was just good to meet a lot of people and still be competing at a very high level."
The Austin Preparatory School (Reading, Mass.) and Merrimack College graduate took his first coaching job around 1994 as the junior varsity coach for Pelham High School and then took over as varsity head coach in 1997.
When he took the then-part-time men's volleyball coaching job at Rivier in 1997, Kolek still did not see it as his future career-wise but quickly caught the coaching bug.
Joanne Merrill, the former longtime Rivier athletic director, brought Kolek on full-time in 1999, when he took over the women's volleyball program as well. At the time, Kolek said, Rivier was one of the first schools to make volleyball a full-time coaching position by leading both the men's and women's programs.
"The seasons started slowly because we were building basically brand new programs," Kolek said, "but the enthusiasm (was infectious) from the students. ... Seeing their desire to learn and how hard they're working and knowing that I've been at a certain level, I knew I could get them to a different level than where they were."
Kolek, a combined 11-time GNAC Coach of the Year, has always prioritized family and that is the type of atmosphere he immediately implemented with both programs. He wanted players to view both teams as part of one program rather than separate entities.
Players from both teams can often be found in the spring playing pickup games on the sand court on campus, dubbed "Riv Beach." They work on each other's games, have combined team dinners and play in beach tournaments together in the summer.
Rivier outside/middle hitter Isaac Borges, a junior from New Boston, said he lives in a suite with nine of his teammates next to a suite made up of members of the women's team.
"It's always been one, big cohesive unit," Borges said. "It never really felt like a guys team and a girls team. It just felt like it was Riv volleyball."
Campbell, a Nashua South graduate, did not originally plan to play college volleyball. She changed her mind after a phone call with Kolek's former assistant women's coach, Casey Stoodley, and learning about the team's culture.
"There's a huge family atmosphere between the men's and the women's team," Campbell said. "We're very connected on and off the court. ... We're sort of always around each other and supporting as much as we possibly can."
Kolek guided the Rivier men to six straight North East Collegiate Volleyball Association (NECVA) titles from 2001-06 and the women to their first GNAC title in 2003.
The NECVA was a solely men's volleyball conference of 43 teams that disbanded in 2011 after the NCAA created its Division III men's volleyball national championship tournament. Kolek served on the NECVA board of directors committee for its final five years of operation and said one of its goals was for the NCAA to sponsor a Division III men's tournament.
Both programs started to become what they are today in 2008, Kolek said. The women won their second straight and third overall GNAC title and the men won their first of six straight GNAC crowns that year. Before the NECVA disbanded, the GNAC was a division within the NECVA.
"The '01-'06 (teams) really set the foundation as far as men's Rivier volleyball," Kolek said, "and '08 is when the men and the women became one massive 40-person unit and really took off from there with championships and just notoriety and great exposure for the university nationwide."
The Rivier men reached the GNAC semifinals this spring after posting a 13-3 record in conference play and going 20-10 overall in the regular season. They last won the GNAC title in 2019.
In his final season leading the Rivier women in 2021, they went 13-0 in GNAC play, 21-6 overall and fell to Johnson and Wales in the conference final. Kolek said the school decided to split the men's and women's volleyball coaching positions up after that season and it chose to have him remain as the men's coach.
"He is such a great colleague because he always prioritizes relationships, keeps competition in perspective and is willing to help out anyone he can," Colby-Sawyer College men's volleyball assistant coach and Kearsarge Regional athletic director Scott Fitzgerald said of Kolek in an email. "Additionally, his teams always come to compete so it makes it a lot of fun because they are going to give you everything they've got."
Colby-Sawyer is a GNAC member.
Borges and Campbell both said Kolek emphasizes the importance of the mental aspect of the game. Kolek's three main pillars he preaches to his players are compassion, understanding and empathy.
Campbell said Kolek helped her improve her composure, become a leader on the court and believe that if you give everything you have, you will be successful. Borges, a Goffstown High graduate, said Kolek has helped him improve all aspects of his game and taught him to put your all into your goals both on and off the court.
"If you set your goals, set a way to do them and break it down week by week, you can achieve them," Borges said.
Kolek, who is also the associate athletics director at Rivier, said what keeps him on the Raiders' bench at this point is what he sees each time he gets to practice.
"The recruiting's not the fun part, the travel's not the fun part," Kolek said. "I have a 3 1/2-year-old son at home now so you start to think about, 'What am I missing out on?, or, 'This is getting to be long.' What brings you back is you walk into practice and you have 15, 16 men or women that are working their butts off to become something.
"I get to be a massive difference in their life and, hopefully, whether it's a small or big difference, I'm making a difference."
