Forever Pirates -- Ty Hutchins

This week's Forever Pirates column features former men's volleyball standout, Ty Hutchins, a key member of OCC's 2014 state championship squad.

I came to Orange Coast College because of Coach Travis Turner. I didn't know much about the program, but when I took a visit, Travis kept saying, "The place sells itself." It definitely does. I trusted Travis and took a leap of faith to come to OCC and I would do it again a million times over. 

I always intended for Coast to be a stepping stone for me as my goal was to eventually go on to play Division I volleyball at a competitive university - and I did. I transferred to Brigham Young University after my time at Coast and competed for a National Championship during my time there. I have since graduated from BYU and am now in dental school at UNC Chapel Hill. Looking back I can see how much Coast did for me. It was much more than just a stepping stone. 

My first year at Coast was actually rough - both for our team and for me personally. My immaturity led me to make some poor decisions. After a first-round exit in the playoffs, summer began and I had actually made up my mind (or, so I thought) to transfer to another school. I just had to call Travis to tell him. Credit to him, because he had no time to prepare a speech that would talk me out of transferring, but he still did. To paraphrase, he said I needed to earn back the trust and respect from my teammates, and coming back was the only way to do that. He said, "Just come back, you'll have a great year, we'll win a title, then you and the guys will be friends for life and forget all about this." That's exactly what happened. 

That summer I decided to finally take training seriously. I went to the gym every day, sometimes twice a day, paid attention to what I ate, and really took care of myself to become a more physical player. Yes we had weights and conditioning my freshman year, but I was the guy who did just enough to get by and not be noticed. I saw what that kind of mentality got me, so I made big changes to make myself better.

Starting my sophomore year, it was different from Day 1. All the time I had spent training made me a new player, and that first day of practice was the first time I got to see what I could do. Volleyball was so much more fun now that I could jump high and hit hard. Plus, I knew what was waiting for us after that first practice - running the stadium. It was the dreaded conditioning session, but since I had worked so hard over the summer I was able to get the most out of it. 

Part of our team culture was this policy where once you finished running your laps up and down the stadium, instead of sitting down and being done like you desperately wanted to, you continued to run alongside the guys who hadn't finished yet. Looking back, that was so important because it built an understanding amongst our team that, yes, we will compete with each other to run those stadium steps the fastest, much like we will compete with each other every day in practice, but at the flip of a switch, we can come together and compete together like we need to on gameday.

We had that championship mentality from that first day, and we took it to every team we faced that year. Even our one loss, we made them earn it and then we rolled them the next time we met. But the thing that was so remarkable about us was that we were never content. Even after big wins like walking into our rival IVC's gym and sweeping them in less than an hour, we would let ourselves celebrate on the ride home, but after that it was always on to the next. I think that's why my first words to Tony Altobelli when he asked me how it felt after winning the 2014 State Championship were, "I can finally breathe now." That's what our success looked like. Never being satisfied enough to even take a breath until the trophy was ours. 

Through all the hard work, we still made sure to have a good time. A group of us would head down to the beach after tough practices and take trips to Santa Barbara over the weekends. We would stop and eat at this local deli we all loved on our trips down to play matches in San Diego. We even went on Let's Make a Deal for a team fundraiser. Plenty of other memories come to mind, and we'll always have those to keep us connected even as life takes us in different directions.

One of the most incredible things about Coast is that whatever you want it to be for you, it will. It has every opportunity available to help you succeed. But the best part is that you have to go and get it. 

An example that encompasses what I mean is having our academic advisor at the time, Stacy Kirch. Being a community college, there are so many different routes you can take with your education and some are more serious than others. If you take a passive approach you can easily sign up for all fluff classes that you'll have no problem passing in order to stay eligible, but that's not what I wanted. My goal was to transfer to a university after Coast and play D1 volleyball. In a meeting with Stacy, I made it clear that these were my goals and she created a term-by-term outline of the classes I needed to take so that by the time I was ready to transfer, all my credits would transfer to the new school and all would be smooth. It was then just up to me to enroll and succeed in those classes.

I found that to be the case with just about everything at Coast - as long as you decided what path you wanted to take, and were willing to put in the hard work, the opportunities were there. 

I was coming from Gilbert, Arizona, a suburban town that, for better or for worse, was relatively vanilla. Now, Orange County can definitely be considered vanilla in some ways too, but I truly feel like I was exposed to the real world coming to OCC. You look at the different walks of life just on our team alone - we had Jimmy Webb who would be doing Navy SEAL training down at the beach, run all the way back to Costa Mesa for practice, then STILL work his tail off for a three-hour practice. We had Brendan Duff, whose real dream was to play professional beach volleyball, but graced us with his talents for two years before pursuing his dream. Then we had Ryan Manoogian, who was hearing impaired but never let any physical limitation stop him from working just as hard as anyone in the gym (more on him here). 

We all brought something unique to the team, and I believe it was those differences that helped us come together and achieve greatness. I have my time at OCC to thank for giving me my first exposure to how powerful diversity can be. 

To everyone who had a part in our legendary year - from coaches, to trainers, to academic advisers, to maintenance staff, and the entire village it took - a sincere thank you for your important role in an experience that means the absolute world to me. I wouldn't be half the person I am today without it, and without you. To current players - enjoy it and please take advantage of everything Coast has to offer, because it's a lot. To all the fellow alumni - I hope the 2014 Men's Volleyball team made you proud to be a FOREVER PIRATE. 

We are looking for more Pirate Athlete Alum to share their stories and memories of their time at OCC! Just email your story to Sports Information Director Tony Altobelli at aaltobelli@occ.cccd.edu. Please include any pics you'd like to share as well.