When Nova Scotia volleyball aficionados sit around and talk about women’s volleyball in the province, there is one name that stands out from the rest; Bob Piers. A respected coach, Piers has been a major force in making Truro a bastion of women’s volleyball in Nova Scotia.

Like many athletes in high school, Piers played a variety of sports while at Truro High School. After graduation, he attended the University of New Brunswick and played varsity basketball while earning his degree in physical education.

After university, Piers started teaching at Middleton High School (MHS) in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley. As the physical education teacher, he coached soccer, volleyball, basketball, and badminton, as well as track and field. In 1967, the MHS boy’s volleyball team won the right to represent Nova Scotia at the first Canada Winter Games in Quebec City. The following year, MHS won the provincial men’s volleyball title.

Piers then traveled to Australia to study. At this time he was the provincial tennis coach. He finished a one-year masters of physical education at the University of Oregon, and then returned to MHS where he took over as women’s volleyball coach. He was also Nova Scotia’s technical director for tennis.

In 1975, Piers stared teaching at Cobequid Education Centre (CEC), the large high school in his hometown of Truro, Nova Scotia. He remained there for 23 years until his retirement in 1998.

Upon his arrival at CEC there was no boy’s volleyball team, so he started one. Piers also co-coached the boy’s basketball team, while expanding the track team from 10 to 80 athletes.

For the 1991-92 school year, Piers took a sabbatical and studied at the University of Arizona. When he returned to CEC, both volleyball teams were well looked after, so he coached junior high basketball for a few years. In 1995, Piers took over as girls volleyball coach at CEC, and has been in the drivers seat ever since.

In 1996 he started Hub Club, the local women’s volleyball club. Although it started as only one 16 and under team, it now has teams in 18 and under, 16 and under and 14 and under. The last few years, with the help of Darren Russell and Paul Settle, the Hub Club has become a force in women’s club volleyball. This past club season, the 18 and under women won their third provincial championship, while the 16 and under women won their first.

While Piers has had nominal success as a club coach, high school volleyball is where he has had the most success. 2002-03 marks CEC’s fifth consecutive women’s volleyball high school provincial championship. CEC has also won six of the last seven provincials. After two straight undefeated seasons, the CEC women finally lost a tournament this year. Piers estimates the winning streak at 26 consecutive high school tournaments. Piers tries to deflect any personal credit from his teams success. "I’ve been lucky to have very athletic girls with good size," Piers says. "It doesn’t matter how good a coach you are, if you don’t have good athletes, your team isn’t winning."

Piers credits assistant coach Heater Wolfe with much of the recent CEC success. A former player, manager and assistant coach at the University of Toronto, Wolfe works directly with the setters.

Piers tries to imprint two important values upon all his players: hard work and commitment. "If you want something out of it, you have got to put something into," Piers emphasizes. "My girls commit to at least two morning practices a week on their own tow work on skills. We’re not number one because we look good!"

After high school season is over, Piers is often writing letters to universities on behalf of his players. Many of his players have gone on to successfully play university volleyball. Some of the universities former CEC players now call home are Saint Mary’s, Mount Allison, Acadia, McGill, University of British Columbia and University of Toronto. The University of New Brunswick has had two rookies of the year from CEC, as well as CEC graduate Rebecca Vair, who was a four time AUS all-star before transferring to MacMasters to take a Master’s degree and play her last year of volleyball.

One thing Piers stresses is the need for coaches to continue to educate themselves. "You should continue to study and update your skills because you never know all you can. You can always be learning something."

Nearly 40 years of coaching and many accolades later, it would seem that Bob Piers has learned his lessons well.