Michael Karu, center, who has coached the Golda Och Academy girls’ volleyball team for 15 years, retired from the program at the end of this past season, with the above photo taken at the team’s final home match of the season. Karu leaves the team in the capable hands of assistant coaches Marc Solondz, left, and Eric Chen.
WEST ORANGE, NJ — It is the end of an era for the Golda Och Academy’s girls volleyball program, as varsity coach Michael Karu has retired after 15 years nurturing the growth of the school’s female volleyball players.
According to Karu, he leaves the program with a 134-87 record and a 2012 Colonial Division championship under his belt. But these athletic achievements are not what matter the most to him. Instead, the longtime coach said he will above all miss working with his players.
“As coaches, we’re not really coaching just the sport,” Karu told the West Orange Chronicle in a Nov. 21 phone interview. “We’re coaching life lessons. We’re coaching teamwork, sportsmanship, work ethic. And the ability to make a difference in these kids’ lives is huge.
“That’s what I’ll miss the most — just being around the kids,” he continued. “I hope I did make a difference in the lives of one or more of them.”
The coach loved his job so much that he said it felt “awful” to depart from the volleyball program. Yet the position was taking up a lot of time in his busy schedule, which was already stretched thin between his responsibilities at the Levine, Jacobs & Company accounting firm and the Rotary Club of West Orange. He said it seemed the time was right to step down.
And as much as he hates to have left — it has only been two weeks since the season ended but Karu said he already misses it — the coach will have plenty of memories to reflect on from his decade and a half with the program. Interestingly though, Karu’s involvement with the team began after a chance visit to the gym at what was then the Solomon Schechter Day School, where he dropped something off to his daughter, a cheerleader there at the time. He recalled noticing Melinda Udell, the volleyball coach at that time, looking overwhelmed while working with roughly 20 girls. So, he offered to come onboard as an assistant coach, having played the sport for 30 years and having coached for the Maccabi Youth Games, an Olympic-style event held annually for Jewish teenagers.
Karu’s offer was eagerly accepted and, after family issues forced Udell to leave the program two years later, he was promoted to the varsity coaching position. During the next 13 years he guided the team to a 61-percent win rate per season, among many other accomplishments. Aside from the 2012 divisional championship, he listed last year’s season as a proud moment as the team went from being the No. 13 seed to being the only team outside the top eight to make it into the quarterfinals. This past season his players had a particularly impressive win over West Orange High School, Karu said.
Those achievements have not gone unnoticed. Janet Herman, Golda Och’s director of athletics, also pointed out that Karu’s players regularly received all-conference honors. And that was all due to the coach’s efforts, Herman said.
“Mr. Karu is a very dedicated, knowledgeable and passionate coach,” Herman told the Chronicle in a Nov. 21 email.
And there have been as many meaningful moments spent helping players off the court as on the court. Most were too personal to comment on, but Karu remembered one instance in which he counseled a girl on which university to attend.
He said the girl was adamantly opposed to going to the Ivy League school her parents were demanding she attend. She wanted to go to another college, but after Karu asked her whether it actually offered what she wanted to study, she admitted that she did not know. So he urged her to consider some other schools, and she ended up happily graduating from a different Ivy League school instead.
“Sometimes just a small conversation can make a difference,” Karu said.
Simply playing volleyball can also make a huge difference in someone’s life, Karu added. The coach said he believes volleyball is the “ultimate team sport” because it entails an entire group moving together as one. Therefore, he said, a player cannot help but learn the importance of being part of something bigger than oneself.
“If everybody doesn’t work together, you lose,” Karu said.
The players were not the only ones picking up life lessons during Karu’s tenure, though. The coach himself said he learned a lot about humility and patience during his years working with the girls. He said his coaching experience also reinforced his belief in giving back to the community. In fact, he listed bringing together all his fellow division coaches to raise more than $5,000 for breast cancer awareness as one of his favorite achievements with the team.
Karu plans to continue giving back now that he is no longer with the volleyball program, dedicating his extra free time to his work with the Rotary Club. He also wants to spend more hours contributing to Help the Children Hear, an organization that distributes hearing aids to children in Third World countries. Of course, he joked that his partners hope he will work even more at Levine, Jacobs & Company, as well.
No matter what he does though, Karu said he will never forget the roughly 80 players he has coached through the years. They were all great girls, he said, and they all gave him great memories. And looking back on his coaching experience, he said benefiting their lives is the only victory that matters.
“If I’ve made a difference — even a small difference — in the lives of these 80 young women, that’s more than I could ever hope to achieve,” Karu said.
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