Wilson heading to Manitoba Volleyball Hall

Grant Wilson just wanted to give something back to the program he gained so much from.

He had no idea when he returned to Neelin High School in the fall of 1987 that it’d be the start of four decades dedicated to coaching volleyball.

Wilson worked his way through the ranks, never seeing an opportunity as too small, and climbed to the peak of Canadian university volleyball as his Brandon University Bobcats won the U Sports title last year.

On Sunday, Wilson will become just the 80th individual inducted into the Volleyball Manitoba Hall of Fame.

“It’s humbling, it’s a great honour, it’s almost embarrassing because I feel like I don’t really belong amongst a lot of those people, but certainly thankful for the recognition,” Wilson said.

“It’s something when my career is over, I’ll maybe spend a bit more time thinking about, but right now, just a little taken aback by it all.”

Wilson started as an assistant coach at Neelin before working with the junior varsity girls at Vincent Massey when he was a student-teacher there.

His first full-time position was at Harrison, so he coached junior high volleyball there before working one more year at Neelin and ultimately settling into a permanent position at King George, half in physical education and half in Grade 8 classroom.

Looking back, he’s grateful for the physical education staff of Larry Rodenbush and Gary MacKay, along with volleyball coach Eric Dowsett, for trusting him to jump in and help so quickly.

“They had the belief in me to come back and start coaching at a pretty young age, and I jumped at the opportunity. It changed the course of my life,” Wilson said.

“I’m pretty thankful for those opportunities; they led me down a path I’ve absolutely loved.”

It took about a decade, but Wilson’s coaching career started picking up steam in the late 1990s. He coached a 16-and-under Westman regional team to a provincial championship, back when Volleyball Manitoba held such a competition before the club scene exploded.

That’s where he formally met Russ Paddock, who asked him to coach provincial team volleyball with him.

They did so in 1998, and for the next few years, including the 2001 Canada Games team.

In the meantime, Wilson guided Neelin to its first-ever AAA volleyball provincial title in 1999.

He then resurrected the Assiniboine College men’s team in 2000.

A few years later, Brandon University volleyball started and competed in what’s now the Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference for two years before joining Canada West in 2005.

Wilson applied for the head coaching job and encouraged Paddock to do the same. There was definitely a time he wouldn’t have believed he’d leave his teaching position behind, but Wilson felt ready to make the leap with the knowledge he’d gained over nearly 20 years as an educator.

“If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail,” Wilson said.

“I considered myself a pretty organized person as a teacher and that moved into my coaching. I like to plan accordingly. You set your goals and do what you need to do to achieve your goals.

“It’s way more than Xs and Os. It’s understanding people and managing people, and I felt like I had the ability to connect with my athletes and connect with the parents in the school system … I tried to instil some standards that were important, not just on the court.”

However, it wasn’t his time just yet.

Paddock got the job and brought Wilson on immediately as an assistant coach, a position he held for the next seven years.

They didn’t waste time building a powerhouse, in part thanks to the Australian trio of Paul Sanderson, Cam Blewett and Luke Reynolds.

Brandon reached the national tournament for the first time in 2009, in just its fourth season of U Sports competition.

The Bobcats captured a bronze medal, then returned two years later and reached the final, falling to the host Trinity Western Spartans and settling for silver.

In 2012, Paddock was promoted to athletic director and Wilson assumed the head coaching position he has held for 14 years.

Accepting the job he seemingly spent a lifetime working towards wasn’t so simple.

He would give up a permanent job for a term position with a pay cut.

“I remember talking with my wife, Carmi, and weighing the advantages and disadvantages. She’s always been my biggest supporter and said ‘Go for it,’” Wilson said. “At the end of the day, I felt like this was in my heart. It was something I really wanted to pursue.

“With where Russ had left off with the program … it was not like I was starting from scratch. It felt like I was starting at a good spot and could carry the tradition we had started, and that I could turn it into a full-time, permanent situation.

“Maybe I was naive thinking that but I felt like it was possible, and it did happen.”

Once again, Wilson didn’t waste time. He guided BU to its first-ever Canada West championship that season, taking another national bronze medal home from Quebec City.

As a conference champion, job security was no longer a concern. Four years later, BU granted Wilson tenure, and his drive to perform and win only ramped up from there.

Wilson assembled arguably the best roster in Bobcat history for the 2018-19 season, and reached the No. 1 spot in the national rankings while posting a 22-2 record, then capturing the Canada West crown on home court.

The team reached the national final but fell in straight sets to Trinity Western.

The next few years came with one heartbreaking playoff loss after the next, each one at the hands of the Spartans.

But in 2025, Wilson knew he just had to get his team to hit its absolute peak in March as it had an automatic nationals berth as the host.

In what may have felt like his last great chance to capture a national title, Brandon did just that, knocking off the top-ranked Winnipeg Wesmen, reverse sweeping the Saskatchewan Huskies and beating the defending champion Alberta Golden Bears 3-1.

While some can look at that championship as one great weekend, it took years of building to have that group ready to knock off the nation’s best.

In the same way, it wasn’t just the culmination of 13 years as a U Sports head coach, but three times that, trying to get one per cent better each day.

Wilson feels fortunate to have landed in the position he holds today, but knows more than anyone how hard he worked to get there.

“It’s never going to be perfect. It’s taking advantage of the opportunities you get, and sometimes those opportunities are not even positive ones,” he said. “You might be put in a tough situation with head coaches you don’t necessarily agree with completely … but you’ve got to do the best job you can and be the best team guy you can and find ways to learn.

“When you become a head coach, whenever it is, you have lots of tools to choose from to deal with different situations and deal with different people and take advantage of any opportunity you can get.

“I feel like some people try to skip steps. They try to, maybe, not work with certain age groups or certain teams. To me, any coaching opportunity can be a good opportunity if you’re willing to learn from it.”

Of course, some of those have been next to impossible to turn down, like when they’re with Team Canada.

Wilson debuted with the national team program as a guest coach with Richard Schick and Larry McKay in 2002, and coached the youth national team with Paddock in 2006.

He assistant coached the world university games team in 2019, and has been an assistant coach with Volleyball Canada’s NextGen team recently as well.

“Meeting so many great people and smart minds of the game, just try to be a sponge when you’re around those people to learn more to make yourself better and your program better,” Wilson said. “That’s what I’ll continue to do when I get those opportunities.”

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com