In the 2005-06 season, Benson took over as Eastern Mennonite’s first combined men’s and women’s volleyball coach. He guided the men’s program to four North East Collegiate Volleyball Association tournaments and back-to-back runner-up finishes in 2006 and 2007.

The Royals had a 93-82 record in his six seasons, including 32-12 in NECVA play. Benson leaves with the most coaching wins in the program’s 21-year history. His 22-11 team in 2007 also holds the mark for most wins in a season.

On the women’s side, Benson finished 41-124 and advanced to one Old Dominion Athletic Conference tourney. The Lady Royals were 11-49 in ODAC matches.

Benson said the position in Florida provided a couple of benefits for him.

“It is a great opportunity to be associated with volleyball from a different perspective in my career,” he said, “and also to be close to home and family in Florida because of situations that have happened over the past year. I appreciate that EMU gave me a chance to coach on both the men’s and women’s level. It was a tremendous experience that has given me a chance to grow in my abilities and knowledge of game.”

Athletic Director Dave King said Benson helped establish the position as EMU’s first combined head coach for volleyball.

“Steve was somewhat of a pioneer, taking on the responsibilities for both women’s and men’s programs,” King said. “I am grateful for his willingness to take on this new model and give the amount of time, energy and balance it takes to work with both programs.”

King said Benson’s connections brought Eastern Mennonite to the attention of new groups of potential student-athletes.

“Steve has maintained strong relationships with the club volleyball programs in the country, specifically USA Volleyball, which has helped broadened the scope of recruiting, particularly for the men’s team,” he said. “With very few high schools in Virginia sponsoring boys’ volleyball, his knowledge of and participation in the club volleyball program was beneficial to our program.”

Benson also helped guide the scheduling for the transition of the men’s program into the new Continental Volleyball Conference, which begins play in the upcoming season.

He said the relationships he formed at Eastern Mennonite will be the hardest thing for him to leave.

“I’m going to miss the people at EMU and the relationships I developed,” said Benson, “and most importantly the relationships I developed with past and present players. Those are very dear to me and I hope to continue my relationships with those players.”

King said he understood Benson’s decision, and with women’s preseason practices starting in just over a month he is already looking at what direction to go with coaching.

“I wish Steve and his family well in their transition back to Florida,” he said. “It appears to be a good situation for them to combine their passion for volleyball with important family relationships. I have already started exploring options for interim coaches for each team or persons interested in the full-time position and will be working with assistant coaches to help in the transition to new coaches and/or new structures. I am committed to finding the best person(s) to continue building both programs and providing the student athletes with both individual and team success.”

Middle blocker Justin Reesor is one of two returning seniors for the Royals.

People who know Justin Reesor consistently described him as quiet and humble, and nothing about the 22-year-old’s calming demeanor indicates otherwise.

For those reasons, 草莓社区 men’s volleyball coach Steve Benson didn’t know what to expect when Reesor tried out for the Royals’ team as a freshman.

“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a player,'” Benson said.

It’s easy to see why Reesor might confuse people. Nothing he says or does comes off as competitive. He has a relaxed sense of humor (most about being Canadian) and seems more likely to rescue children from a burning orphanage than be a powerful middle blocker on a college volleyball team.

And yet …

“He got on the court, and it was like, ‘Who is this kid?'” Benson said. “You didn’t recognize him from the other because he has such a presence on the court.”

Reesor – a sleek 6-foot-2, 180-pounder with a chiseled face and a teen-idol smile – is now the Royals’ all-time blocks leader with 358 and leads EMU during this snow-disrupted season with eight in two games.

“He’s very consistent,” said Frankie Coto, a junior middle blocker. “You always know when it’s crunch time, he’s going to be there. Again, he’s very quiet on the court, but it’s that that makes him deadly. He’s not a loud guy, but he kind of like ‘ninjas’ his way through the game.”

The Royals haven’t had many games lately because of the recent snowstorms. EMU (2-0) hasn’t played since Jan. 27, when it beat Lancaster Bible College 30-20, 30-26, 31-29.

Not surprisingly, Reesor – who appears uncommonly mature and responsible (he’s getting married in June) – found a positive in all the down time, which is scheduled to end this weekend when EMU travels to Rochester, N.Y., for a tournament at Nazareth College.

“We’ve actually had time to work on a lot of things in practice,” Reesor said. “Especially having a new setter this year, you really need to. It’s vital to get in reps with the guys – and, obviously, game situations do that. But in practice, you can really talk about it and you can really learn and teach in a more constructive way.”

It’s a common theme in his life.

A native of Stouffville, Ontario (it’s about 40 minutes north of Toronto) and the butt of numerous Canadian jokes (mostly one-liners about igloos, moose and caribou, but one elaborate conceit involves a maple syrup farm worked by squirrels and beavers), Reesor has taken three trips overseas – overwhelmingly in a service capacity.

His first was to Kenya – during the year he took off after graduating from high school – where he visited his uncle and aunt (who were working in Africa) for six weeks. In Kenya, Reesor volunteered at a community center. In the summer between his sophomore and junior year, he traveled to Israel, Palestine and Turkey with a Mennonite church group on a peace mission. This past fall, he went on a trip to South Africa as part of EMU’s cross-cultural curriculum.

Justin Reesor with new friends at Teboho Primary School in South Africa during fall 2009 cross-cultural. (Photo by Michael Spory)

And, of course, he was responsible about preparing for the study abroad program.

“I could see that he wanted to do more things with us, like hang out. But he was in his room doing work,” Coto said. “He had 18 credits, playing volleyball, trying to get all that out of the way, so he could go [to South Africa].”

While in South Africa, Reesor said, he buffed up from marathon pushup sessions and hiking the country’s mountainous topography. The added bulk is slightly unnerving considering it was power that got him noticed his freshman year, when his older sister (then a junior at EMU) encouraged him to try out for Eastern Mennonite’s volleyball team.

“This was a new experience for me being here,” said Reesor, who chose EMU because he’s Mennonite, had multiple family members attend the school and wanted to get away from home. “I didn’t know anyone, so I was kind of the scared little freshman, but my sister was actually like – she forced me to go to the first volleyball meeting.”

It was a good idea.

“We had a couple open gyms, and I realized I could play with these guys,” Reesor said.

Benson remembered the first time he realized Reesor could play. It was early in Reesor’s freshman season in 2007. Reesor went on to win the North East Collegiate Volleyball Association Western Division Rookie of the Year award.

“He absolutely crushed the ball in front of the 10-foot line, and we all kind of stopped and went, ‘Whoa,'” said Benson, in his fifth season and the father of Spotswood High standout girls’ volleyball player Alexa Benson. “Myself and everyone else on the court was shocked because this quiet freshman came in and destroyed the ball.”

Who knew?

By Marcus Helton, Daily News-Record

Sophomore middle Frankie Coto had a team leading seven kills along with eight block assists against Sacred Heart in the championship round of the SUNY New Paltz Tournament on Saturday, January 17. (Courtesy Wayne Gehman)

With high school boys’ volleyball programs near his home base non-existent, 草莓社区 men’s coach Steve Benson often has to tap his recruiting connections to find talent.

Benson, who arrived at EMU from Florida in 2005, focuses on attracting players from Virginia, but it isn’t easy. Not only do area schools not offer boys’ basketball, but in places that do field prep volleyball teams – such as the state’s urban crescent – Eastern Mennonite isn’t always on the radar screen.

“Just through recruiting efforts, you realize kids from Richmond where they have [volleyball] and Virginia Beach, didn’t even know about EMU,” Benson said at practice Wednesday. “They knew about [George] Mason, who is a D-I program, but they didn’t know about EMU, and a lot of kids that I saw were slipping through the cracks, in a sense.”

Program has Attractive Pedigree

EMU’s pedigree has made attracting talent from more distant locations easier. The Division III Royals have a long tradition in volleyball: Until 2001, they were in the same conference as Penn State (meaning the Nittany Lions would occasionally find themselves playing matches at a school 30 times smaller than theirs) and Eastern Mennonite finished last season ranked No. 10 in Division III by the American Volleyball Coaches Association.

Benson’s current 16-man roster includes nine Virginians, but his two best players don’t hail from anywhere near the commonwealth: sophomore middle blocker is a Miami native, and junior middle blocker is a Canadian.

Coto was almost an accidental recruit. Benson was actually recruiting a friend of Coto’s, and Coto tagged along on his recruiting trip.

“I came and visited and [Benson] was a great coach and I saw the team and I was like, ‘Wow this is very nice,'” Coto said. “The gym’s beautiful, the campus is beautiful, everybody’s friendly here. It’s nice to be able to get away from the city, too, and be in a small town.”

Still, what makes a kid leave the warmth and pleasure of South Beach for the relatively frigid winters of Virginia?

“It’s kind of a hard sell for a kid from Miami,” Benson, who coached community college and high school ball in Florida, said with a laugh. “But, there’s only one varsity program in Florida [NAIA Warner Southern], and there’s some good ball in Orlando and the Miami area, so it’s a chance to get some connections from that area.”

Said Coto: “Yeah, I’ve gotten used to [the weather]. I mean, it is pretty cold sometimes. It was really tough at first.”

Coto ‘Rookie of the Year’

Fortunately for the Royals, the 6-foot-2, 167-pounder stuck it out, earning Rookie of the Year honors in the North East Collegiate Volleyball Association’s Western Division last season. Coto had 122 blocks last year and needs just 30 more to crack EMU’s all-time top-15 list. (Reesor is currently No. 2).

“It was a good stepping-stone,” Coto said of his award.

Reesor, who is from Stouffville, Ontario, arrived at EMU by a more traditional route: He is Mennonite and said family has attended EMU.

“That’s how I knew about the school,” he said, “and I also knew I wanted to play volleyball at college. It just seemed like they had a good team, and it seemed like a good fit for me. I really like the community and the school here.”

Coto and Reesor will be counted on to provide leadership, if only because they make up exactly half of EMU’s group of returning players. The four returnees are joined by 11 freshmen, along with sophomore setter , who transferred in the fall after starting at Lees-McRae College (N.C.) last winter.

While short on experience, one thing the Royals now have that they lacked a year ago is depth.

Last season, the team had only 10 players, and injuries often left them with scarcely enough bodies to field a complete team.

The difference, Coto said, is already noticeable.

“We were practicing against Coach and our assistant coaches,” he said with a laugh, recalling last season. “Me and [Reesor] didn’t get any rest at all, so practice was like, grueling. It’s nice to just rest for a second.”

Despite their youth, the Royals aren’t looking at this as a rebuilding year. EMU is off to a 2-1 start after opening the season with three matches at the State University of New York-New Paltz Tournament last Friday and Saturday. Their loss came against Division I Sacred Heart, 3-0.

“I think our volleyball IQ is high,” Reesor said. “Even though these guys are freshmen, they know what they’re doing. They’ve played a lot of club, they’ve played high school and been in camps. These guys have played more than I have, even though I’m four years older than some of them. So, I think the expectations are high, and this is going to be a good program here for a long time.”

But Thursday, he and his teammates on the University of Puerto Rico-Mayag