Newest volleyball club welcomes all comers
The Madera Tribune
Adam Horner.
High Torque Volleyball Club to host skills clinic July 28 After years of hesitating and not finding the right time, former Madera Coyote boys volleyball standout Adam Horner has finally pulled the trigger and started High Torque Volleyball Club, a travel volleyball club to help more athletes improve.
While helping coach the Madera Coyotes boys volleyball team to its second straight Div. II Valley Championship and the school’s first NorCal State championship, Horner realized that a lot of the players didn’t have the avenue to keep playing volleyball.
“There’s only a couple of clubs for boys,” he said. “It wasn’t very accessible for them. I decided to get some guys together and get our own club and work it out of Madera. Add some players out of Fresno who weren’t in clubs and go that way.”
Horner had been pushed by former Coyote teammate Brett Massetti, who won a state championship with the Long Beach State Volleyball Club.
“He has been pushing for me for years to start something,” Horner said. “I’ve been going down to Long Beach for years to his practices, games and clinics, helping him out. I realized starting a club was possible. When I realized most of the kids weren’t playing. I noticed the clubs only take the ones they want. We’re open to everybody.”
In addition, Horner saw the youth movement at Madera High and realized it was the right time with the amount of athletes heading Madera’s way.
“We have a lot of young kids at Madera,” he said. “It’s a perfect time to start a club. It’s going to help everybody. We’re open to everybody — Madera South, Edison-Fresno, Hoover-Fresno, Roosevelt-Fresno, Bullard-Fresno — I’ll take them all. If they want to come and try out, we’ll take everybody. We put a good program with good coaches and we’re all about learning and growing.”
For now, Horner is running open gyms at Madera High School each Friday from 6-8 p.m. He has had to move the open gym from Joe Flores Gym to the Olive Avenue gym because he’s able to put up two nets in that gym.
“We’ve had 20-25 kids come out, so we’ve had to have two nets,” Horner said. “The interest in the club has been awesome. For the boys side, it isn’t easy to get kids. I’m hoping some of the Madera South kids will come in. Hopefully, we can come together to get a united Madera. There is a lot of talent. If we can come together, we can make something special and get Madera on the map.”
Tryouts will be in August with the season starting in September. He said he plans on taking a team to a Junior National bid qualifier in Northern or Southern California.
“The kids I have coming out, we should do fairly well,” he said. “I haven’t seen the competition yet.”
Massetti has been pushing Horner to start a volleyball club for a years, but Horner wasn’t able to find the time to dedicate to it. Now, he has a stepdaughter, who is a sophomore at Madera High, who participates in extracurricular activities so Horner is around the school more. He found himself migrating to the gym and to the boys volleyball program.
“Not only can I be on campus to help her, but to help other teams out,” Horner said. “I started helping out with (Madera boys vlleyball head coach) Rhonda (Jefferson)this year and liked it. Coming from a player to coaching, it’s fun. The kids are great. Every day, I’m learning something new. It brings me back to playing. I love the sport. Volleyball is awesome.”
Horner graduated from Madera in 2005 and hung around to coach for a few years after that. However, he went into the working field and was out of volleyball for a while.
“The past two or three years, I’ve started coming back to help out,” he said. “This is the first job I landed and it snowballed. Once I saw the opportunity, I jumped on it and hope it works out.”
Horner sees a future where more and more elite athletes start coming out for volleyball because of increased popularity and televised air time.
“You’ve started to see a shift on the guys side,” he said. “More and more athletes are starting to play volleyball. I think a tidal wave is coming and it should be exciting in Madera in the next few years.”
Horner picked the name High Torque because that is what you want when you are swinging at a volleyball and also because his first choice, North Valley, was already taken.
“High Torque came in because coaches talk about getting torque on your body,” he said. “You want to open up your shoulders and use your body to torque it. High torque represents power and that’s what we want to be about — jump high and swing hard.” Volleyball clinic
Horner will bring Massetti up to Madera for a girls volleyball clinic on July 28 at Joe Flores Gym, beginning at 10:30 a.m. until 2 p.m.
Massetti started the girls program at the Long Beach Volleyball Club. It started with one team and now has more than 150 girls and about 15 teams.
“They are big,” Horner said. “Brett is very heavy into the club volleyball scene in Los Angeles. They are big. He’s been doing different clinics down there for years. It’s going to be a lot of fun. He’s going to do the clinic for me. It’s a good opportunity for the girls.”
Massetti, who also works with a lot of college coaches, will host a question and answer session after the clinic.
“We’re going to sit down and help them with anything they need to know about skills, recruting or the game of volleyball,” Horner said.
The cost of the clinic is $100 per athlete. Contact Horner at adamh1029@gmail.com or by text at (559) 871-4933 to register or for questions.
“They are going to be playing a lot,” Horner said. “Our philosophy is they learn by playing. They will get a lot of court time playing the game. The interest has been good. I have a couple of girls signed up and more coming. Hopefully, we’ll bring in girls from the valley. The interest has been high. This is a great opportunity to learn from someone down south where volleyball is king. It will give you a good perspective from somewhere else other than your local coaches.”
Horner is hopeful this clinic will be successful and will host a boys volleyball clinic in January.
“I’ve always had a passion for volleyball,” he said. “I haven’t had the time or direction. Now I have both, I dove in head-on in all aspects. It’s a lot of fun and I love being around the game. The game is growing big time and I’m ready to jump on it, for sure.”
