by Evan Craig
Photo above courtesy of the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame

When Marnie (Triefenbach) Herrling (below) was asked to describe former longtime Belleville West girl’s volleyball head coach Charles Rodman (above, right), she used the analogy of Robin Williams’ character, John Keating, from the hit 1989 film, “Dead Poets Society.”

Rodman, Belleville West’s coach from 1977-2004, quietly earned respect from his players, without resorting to yelling or screaming.

Those tactics resulted in his induction into the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame following a successful high school coaching career, during which he compiled an 814-163-2 record.

Before Belleville West could compete at a championship level, Herrling recalled Rodman’s efforts to get his team to play the best teams in Chicago, to remove the mystique of facing perennial powerhouses like Mother McAuley.

“If we [were] ever going to compete with the teams in Chicago, we [had] to go to Chicago before the state tournament, right? We [had] to be up at the Maine West tournament, we [had] to go to these big tournaments and play against some of the best talent, [even] if it meant getting our butts kicked for a while, that was what we were willing to do,” Herrling said.

Sure enough, Rodman’s plan worked to perfection as his team managed to capture lightning in a bottle when West won back-to-back state championships in 1990 and 1991.

Over thirty years have passed since the Maroons went on those magical runs, yet the memories from participating in those state tournaments have not eluded Herrling, as she remembers them like they were yesterday.

“I just turned 50 this year, and I still talk about the feelings that you get when you walk into Redbird Arena for the state tournaments, or really my proudest moments were the community coming together to support us,” Herrling said.

Every participating school -- regardless of size -- managed to create an atmosphere at the tournament that was both “electric” and “bananas.” 

“Even if you were not even a volleyball fan, the thought of being off school for the day to go to this tournament was like, ‘yeah, I’ll go if I don’t have to go to school,’” Herrling said. “And by the time they got there, they were so into it and they were in costume and their faces were painted. I mean, it was nuts, and it was unbelievable. I mean, you can’t recreate that feeling of adrenaline.”

Mother McAuley was often seen as the team to beat, and then there were other dominant programs like St. Francis in Wheaton, Sacred Heart-Griffin, Lockport and Crystal Lake South, which Belleville defeated during the 1991 title run.

Despite those rivalries, there was always a sense of mutual respect between each of the programs.

“They were friendly rivalries. I mean, that was the other thing about the culture that Coach Rodman created was one of sportsmanship,” Herrling said. “And so it was a friendly rivalry. And which is why I’m friends with so many of these people still on Facebook or whatever the social media platform, is because we had so much respect for one another.”

Rodman continues to be a dear friend of Herrling to this day.

His on-court teachings inspired Herrling as she transitioned to playing collegiately at Stanford University, and then in her post-playing career as a project manager for a commercial construction outlet in San Francisco.

“I don’t know everything about everything, but I certainly know how to bring a team together, and I oftentimes refer to myself as a player-coach because my job is to build the team and then coach that team, manage that team from the start of a construction idea and design to the very end when the clients are moving into their new space,” Herrling said.

“So it had everything to do with my career after sports,” she continued.

Keating in “Dead Poets Society” frequently told his students to “seize the day,” and the Belleville West players under Coach Rodman did exactly that, with a pair of trophies and a lifetime of memories as proof.    

 This story is a part of the IHSA celebration of the first 50 years of the IHSA Girls Volleyball State Series. Click here for more on the Top 50  programs during the first 50 years.