'I always knew that I’d be back': Casey Pieper talks about first season as Moeller coach

After winning three consecutive state championships under head coach Lee Meyer, the Moeller Crusaders boys volleyball program needed a new coach after Meyer stepped down in July.

Moeller announced in October the hiring of Casey Pieper as the program's new leader. Pieper, a 2013 Moeller grad, had served as the freshmen head coach under Meyer before taking over varsity duties.

With year one of the new staff underway at Moeller, Pieper connected with The Enquirer.

Question: You and your brother, Corey, both had successful volleyball careers at Moeller and after. How did volleyball become your sport?

Answer: "My parents met playing volleyball. It was something they did weekly to keep in shape and hang out with some of their friends. It wasn’t really that big at my grade school (St. Veronica), but we got a team together and we were able to play for my seventh and eighth grade year. Going to Moeller it was just something to do in the spring. I played baseball, but it started to get a lot harder to see the ball. When I got to about seventh grade I didn’t realize I needed glasses so that fizzled out a little bit. The other sport you can do in spring is soccer and I stopped doing that once I started playing football.

"Volleyball was a lot of fun and it helped me out through that part of the year."

Question: After Moeller, you went to Dayton and were involved in volleyball there. What did you do there and how did you spin that into a spot at Ohio State?

Answer: "When I was finishing at Moeller, one of the guys on the Dayton club team went to Walsh Jesuit where our senior state tournament was held. He came up and talked to me like, ‘Hey man. I know that you’ve got a lot of stuff coming with graduating, but we’d love to have you come to the tryout and play club.’

"Another buddy of mine, my assistant coach Jake Schaffer, was a practice player with the Dayton women’s team. He said, ‘I do this and I help out. If you want to do it then I’m sure they’d be interested in having you do it.’ I did and that was something I did for three years during the time that I was in school.

"The head coach’s stepson was going to Ohio State for his schooling. It was the year before he went. They were talking to the assistant coach at Ohio State, Kevin Burch, who is now the head coach, and Kevin was saying, ‘Man, I don’t know. We might need some middles.’ I had just played a tournament with the other coaches and they said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this guy who is graduating. He might be able to walk on and he’s played middle before.’

"Kevin was a guy I knew because I took two recruiting trips and one was out to UC-Irvine and he was the assistant coach out there and was the one that picked me up and took me around the campus. He remembered me from that and called me up the week before Christmas and said, ‘Would you like to walk on and give it a shot?’ and it worked out."

More: Top freshmen to grizzled seniors: Who are Cincinnati's boys volleyball players to watch?

Question: How did you get into coaching? You served as the freshmen coach under Lee. How was the process of taking over for him?

Answer: "I always knew that I’d be back at some point. That’s the Moeller way is to really have a lot of guys come back and that’s something I did myself, bringing Brody Threm back this year and Mavric Owens back.

"I came back because I was playing in a tournament with a couple of my buddies in Spain. Matt McLaughlin at the time was the (Moeller) coach and I was like, ‘Hey Matt. I would like to get some practice reps before I go play in this tournament. Is it ok if I come in and play against the guys and help out?’ I was there helping out and doing those things and once Lee got hired I was still around. We had helped with him getting hired and I thought I’d stick around and do whatever he needed me to do.

"He asked me to be the freshmen coach. I was supposed to work with his dad, Dan, that first year but that was the year that COVID canceled it. With the reshuffling of coaches the next year, we pulled Jake (Schaffer) on and he helped out from there."

Question: You're taking over a team that has won three straight titles. Do you feel any added pressure from that?

Answer: "We really haven’t actually talked about it. I mentioned it once or twice in our player meetings when we were talking to the guys after tryouts, but it’s not something I really bring up. The team’s already accomplished something that nobody’s done. They won three state championships in a row."

Question: You finished your first weekend with a 3-0 record. Did you have a little relief from getting that first weekend down?

Answer: "This has been a Moeller thing for a while. Our philosophy is the regular season is important, but obviously, the tournament is where it’s at. We need to find a way to teach these guys what they need to know in our short two months that we have before the crunch time starts. I’m not necessarily worried about the record. Is it nice to win every game? Yeah, it is. Is it likely? No. They’re still high schoolers. They’re still going to have bad days and they’re still young and working through stuff.

"Coming out of the weekend, the big thing was they worked hard. They got down and they still got up and found a way to win. We were able to get a bunch of people in different spots and they played really well. That was the key that we want to see.

"Our game this weekend is obviously going to be tough. Obviously, St. Xavier is a talented squad and we’re going to see how we match up and see what adjustments need to be made for next time."

Question: How often do you still get to play? You've played for teams in the Volleyball League of America.

Answer: "The VLA has been around for five years or so. It started off as a couple of teams that wanted to bring professional volleyball to the United States. They started this league and it’s been growing steadily and there are two levels now. Our team has played a lot and we’re trying to get to that first tier so this weekend will be really big. Ben Luebbe who coaches at Elder is also on that team and we have a couple of local guys on the team that are still balling out.

"I play on that team and we practice once or twice a week. I also play sand in the mornings to work on that because that’s what I do during the summer is I play doubles and try and compete with some of the AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionals) stuff and I play grass as well."

Question: You won a state title at Moeller in volleyball but also in football. Why do you think there's not more volleyball-to-football crossover like you did, especially with the height some volleyball players have?

Answer: "There’s a couple of things. Football is a big three sport. A lot of those guys who are good athletes there tend to gravitate to the basketball and baseball type of sports. That’s totally fine.

"One thing is that it requires a different athleticism. You can get an athlete who is a really good basketball player and get him on the volleyball court and they can do some stuff and you can teach them stuff, but it’s still just a little goofy and it’s a different type of athleticism.

"It is the same thing going from a volleyball to a football. The other part of with football is you need to have a different mentality. It is a grind and you really have to be ok with tearing yourself down a little bit to grind through some of those practices and do some of the things physically you need to do."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: New Moeller volleyball coach Casey Pieper discusses what led to hiring