Jamie Morrison & Co. return to Aggieland as national champions

Key notes from Jamie Morrison interview

• I'm happy to come in here and celebrate with you. This trophy is a symbol of hard work.
   
• We won the national championship faster than I expected. I had a five-year plan for this. I told our staff, and we talked about this a year and a half ago, about how some teams were winning faster in other sports. I said, "Why not?" Our whole motto became "Why not us?" We were at a tipping point a year and a half ago, where we could do this and do this for years to come. We went out and accomplished this thing, and it's an amazing accomplishment of the hard work by a lot of people.
   
• We had five sets with Louisville and Nebraska, where we were down 0-2, so don't make it sound like a walk in the park. We talked a lot throughout this tournament about playing with joy and enjoying the process. I'm not a "fate" guy, but there were a lot of things that happened throughout this tournament that set us up for other things. I'll give myself some props because I front-loaded the tournament in saying, “This is going to be about how you handle hard.” Brooklyn DeLeye was playing on a torn meniscus. Everyone has their hard. We earned the right to handle our hard for longer.
   
• That Nebraska match, I could've slept for three days after it because every minute of it was hard. We stayed in it the entire time. The first 10 points of Kentucky were hard, but once it clicked for us, it was over. We stayed playing with joy. That was a really good team we beat in the final, and I respect what Craig Skinner has built. It took him eight years. I'm very proud of how our girls played in the final.
   
• Our fans are different. The 12th Man is different. To anybody who traveled, the whole place went crazy. The 12th Man traveled, and we put on a show for them. The greatest fan base in the world traveled to be there with us and be part of it, and I felt some pressure because I wanted to win it for them. We thought it might be a neutral environment, but in that final, it felt like we were playing at home.
   
• I came here because I wanted to grow our sport, and this is huge for our sport. The president of our coaches association wants us to be more involved in more hits because the 12th Man will travel now. I don't think we're sitting here with this championship if the 12th Man doesn't show up for that match.
   
• We can go into what's going to benefit the program, but what I love the most is how people fell in love with our program and our girls. We talk about being authentically ourselves, and it came through on TV and in interviews. That's what I'm most proud of. Our girls are much more confident in who they are and are able to express that. This is a testament to all of that. That became a piece of us, and in our biggest moments, we could let it out. We did some work in staying true to being competitors, but the authenticity piece is huge. You can't make yourself fit into a whole. For the entire country to see it, I'm fired up about that.
   
• I felt confident about five points into the second set. I felt confident once we got it within two in the first set, but I didn't think it would be easy because that team fights. If you look at Kentucky's semifinal, they got beaten up in the first set but came back roaring. The worst thing in volleyball sometimes is that five-minute break, but once we played in alignment with who we were, there was some teammate stuff where people were like, "We got this." Once that started to click and we were firing on all cylinders, I knew we were in a good spot.
   
• It's awesome on so many levels to have people pick up and leave and travel to come because we don't have a lot of time as head coaches. For someone to give up their time is huge. Texas A&M is special. It's unique. It's intertwined and special, and the staff is that way now, too. It's part of the hiring process now. It's always about, "Are you going to care about me?" That is happening with the coaches we're hiring, and now, you have to care. I'll give Mike Elko credit because he's kind of the captain of our coaches, and how he acts is how we're going to act. They lost a tough football game, but stick with him. The values he's instilling are going to be a power for a long time. The seat we sit in as a head coach is sometimes lonely, but it's nice to be able to call somebody else in another sport to see how they handled situations. Elko texted me on Saturday after their loss and told me to kick some butt. That's not easy.
   
• We played so late and so close to Christmas, and the number of people that showed up at 1:30 a.m. was amazing. The highlight of my night on Sunday was that two of our players got a phone call to play professionally. My job now is to balance my family, celebrate Christmas and take some time to take care of the people who are here. I hope we get a chance to celebrate this with the people at this school.
   
• Championships are hard to win. This can't be the expectation every year. All of the care and love that goes into our athletes, this is a byproduct of it happening every once in a while if we're doing it right. Our athletes caring about each other and us is the most valuable thing I can have.
   
• I had a talk at dinner recently, and I told the team that this was the most fun I've ever had coaching, and I was thankful to get to do it for another three days. I was happy we made the most out of the time we had.
   
• This group got to be so good at volleyball, and it's about development. I love the spring, and I'm looking forward to that. It'll be a different group, but we have some pieces coming in. It's the art of coaching to get it all to fit together. The feel and emotions of this team will be a little different, and that excites me.