Schneider receives call to Volleyball Hall

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This article was published 15/10/2021 (1538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The first thing most people saw about Dustin Schneider, whether on the volleyball court or in a story about him was his height.

He stands five-foot-11 but played as big as the giants he set the ball to throughout an illustrious career.

The Brandon product, who started five years with the University of Winnipeg Wesmen, competed for Team Canada and enjoyed an eight-year professional career, is being inducted into the Volleyball Manitoba Hall of Fame on Nov. 27. He’ll enter the Hall with Dauphin native Tabitha Love, Souris product Rick Scott, Brandon’s Kevin Neufeld and Lisa Barclay, and the Goose Lake Raiders varsity boys of 1992-97 in an all-Westman class of 2021.

If it were up to Schneider, he’d prefer to be remembered not as a guy who overcame odds due to his stature, but by the way coaches like the University of Winnipeg’s Larry McKay and Team Canada’s Glenn Hoag saw him: A damn good setter who could flat out play. And win.

His 2007 CIS tournament MVP award and 2015 NORCECA championship gold medal, among much more hardware, make that abundantly clear.

“It’s so visibly evident that I’m shorter than most of the other guys that it’s become something for people,” Schneider said. “You know, how many blocks does the best blocker get in a match? Not very many. Most team’s setters wouldn’t get very many blocks even if they were tall anyways. The reality of it is if you’re a coach and you’re going to put players on the floor, you put the best players on the floor that you think you have the best chance to win with out there.

“I didn’t think of myself as a short setter, I just thought of myself as a guy that would do his best to give his team a chance to win. If I was wanting people to remember me by something it would be that I won a lot of volleyball games, big volleyball games, and that’s about it.”

Schneider got his first taste of volleyball in junior high at St. Augustine School, but credits Bill Gadd — Brandon University’s first-ever men’s volleyball coach — and his club team, Spank It, for really getting him into the game.

Schneider stood out as the Vincent Massey Vikings setter — he chuckles, thanking coach Mike DeGroot for letting him play on days he skipped class — and played club under current Bobcats bench boss Grant Wilson for Assiniboine Community College’s club squad and with Team Manitoba.

He credits some great teams that surrounded him as much as his ability for garnering University of Winnipeg coach Larry McKay’s attention. The sure-handed setter quickly returned the favour by settling in as a five-year starter right from opening night of the 2003-04 Canada West season. He said running the offence for the No. 2 ranked team in Canada — Manitoba was No. 1 — didn’t weigh heavily on him as a rookie.

“I think I was good at not thinking about that kind of stuff, just playing, being competitive, doing what I felt like would give us the best chance to win,” Schneider said. “That’s always what I would go back to if I was ever letting those external thoughts that don’t help you with success, I would try to always go back to those basics.”

Winnipeg lost the deciding match in a best-of-three series against Alberta that would have sent it to nationals that season. The following two years were somewhat rebuilding time, though the Wesmen reached the playoffs and bowed out on the road. Schneider tried out for the national team in the summer between the two campaigns and was cut for the first time in his life, in any sport.

But a year stronger and wiser, it all came together in 2006-07.

U of W finally reached the U Sports championship in Schneider’s fourth year, then downed Laval 3-1 and UBC 3-0 to reach the gold-medal match against Alberta.

While they hadn’t been there before, Schneider said a multitude of big events prepared the group for the moment.

“Our group played all the way from 17 years old together up through university. We had one junior under-18 nationals together … we’d played provincial team national championships and won those together, we’d won the under-21 junior national championship,” he said. “We hadn’t been to the university national championships, which is a whole different stage, but we had done those things multiple times before.

“I always liked our team’s chances in a high-nerve situation when it was a win-or-go-home because we were a team that wasn’t built on being huge, physical guys. We were more of a ball-control team, a team that would just make you earn every point. That was our advantage when the game would get tight.”

The Wesmen dropped the first set before taking the second and third in convincing fashion. The Golden Bears forced a fifth but ran out of answers for Schneider’s high-powered offence or Winnipeg’s towering block. The Wesmen opened up an 8-5 lead at the turn and stayed ahead as backup setter-turned-super sub Dan Lother ripped an ace to seal the deal.

“I had no expectations of my volleyball career going anywhere beyond university. That was the culmination of all the hard work we had put in and the tough times of the previous years before, of not making it to nationals,” Schneider said. “That’s your goal when you’re playing every year and to have it thwarted at the last step is tough. It’s such a great feeling to do it with a group of guys that was so close.”

Schneider was named tournament MVP and a few months later earned a spot on the national team.

Winnipeg made it back for a gold-medal rematch against Alberta in 2008. This time, however, the Bears wouldn’t be denied as they cruised to a four-set victory. Schneider said depth, or lack thereof, proved vital that season as would-be fifth-years Trevor Shaw and Martin Rochon moved on a year early.

“At a university level depth is huge because guys can’t keep it together every single game, or not every guy can,” Schneider said.

“We had used everyone in those subs the year before that helped us win and I knew that could be a factor. Vice versa on U of A’s side, they had developed guys that could come into the game and bail them out when they didn’t have their starters going. That happened actually, they brought a bench guy on in that final game and he really turned the game around for them.

“You don’t go out there to lose but we had played a really good tournament out there. If we would have left the game and we beat ourselves I would be really disheartened but we lost to a really good team and I’d like to think that three out of five we would have beat them and it was the two out of five that night … I was quite satisfied with my university career at that point.”

Schneider was just getting started.

The next eight years were packed with adventure. Schneider played in Slovenia, Austria, Portugal, France, Poland and Israel while returning to compete for Canada each summer. He’s grateful for coach Glenn Hoag for trusting him in big matches and added assistant Chris Green taught him a ton about the defensive side of the game.

Schneider said wearing the Maple Leaf was a great honour every time, adding the effort and sacrifice it takes year-in and year-out is much more significant than most realize.

“There’s really no job like it in terms of sport. If you think of other sports they play their season, they may have a national team tournament where they join,” Schneider said. “We were training 12 months a year whether it would be for the national team — we’d get maybe a week off — and then go to our professional clubs where you’re on a contract and working every single day. The dedication that was required to be on that team at the time I was on it was immense and something I look back on with a lot of (thankfulness) to be a part of.

“You definitely have to have a growth mindset. You have to set your vision on some long-term things you want to improve. You can’t get brought down by the day-to-day failures or brought too high up from the day-to-day wins. You’ve got to keep yourself grounded because there’s so many variables that can affect your mindset. If you keep a long-term approach on the things you want to improve personally, how you want your team to improve, that can keep you steady and focused.”

Schneider admits he may have never reached his true ceiling professionally, as a couple of knee injuries and surgeries sidelined him during his prime. He looks back on far more ups than downs, however, and feels fortunate to have done it all with his now-wife, Ashley, by his side. They got together in 2008 and married five years later, and now have a son, Theodore, who’s turning seven soon.

Ashley came with him each year and kept up with school through distance learning.

“If she didn’t make some sacrifices to leave home and whatnot we probably wouldn’t be together. I’ve seen so many teammates with girlfriends that didn’t come over and it’s very difficult for relationships to last,” Schneider said. 

The whole family was there his final year, living in Tel Aviv. Schneider considers that one of the best off-court experiences, along with his second year living 30 minutes from Vienna, Austria, and the following one right in Lisbon, Portugal.

One more injury led him to hang up his shoes in 2016 and made a smooth shift into a financial advisor job in Winnipeg.

While the transition out of high-level sport can be an emotionally tough one, Schneider found it much easier for a few reasons.

“For me, I always identified with other things. I wasn’t just Dustin the volleyball player and that’s all I had in my own interpretation of myself. When I decided I was done I just fully immersed myself in what I wanted to do professionally,” Schneider said.

“Sports was always an amazing outlet for me because I’m a really competitive guy and I like improving at things and I could get that from the line of work I went into and that’s what I did. I really don’t miss volleyball.

“I miss teammates and I miss weird things like hanging out in the hotel rooms, lunches on the road … getting warmed up for practice, but I don’t feel like less of myself that I don’t get to play volleyball anymore.”

The induction ceremony is Saturday, Nov. 27 at the Victoria Inn at 1 p.m. Tickets are $42.39, and all attendees are welcome to take in the Bobcats Canada West matches against the visiting Bisons at the Healthy Living Centre that evening. For more information, email volleyball.events@sportmanitoba.ca.

“It feels really good to be honoured, obviously, with the Volleyball Manitoba Hall of Fame,” Schneider said. “I wasn’t expecting it, to be honest … so now it just offers me a time to reflect on all the good memories and my career and the teams I played with, my teammates and coaching. It’s a really good closing point.”

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