On the Map
Bobby Daniels has found tremendous success as Jasper High School’s volleyball coach.
Words by Justin Hunter | Images by Blakeney Clouse
Bobby Daniels is building a dynasty in the heart of downtown Jasper. Just off Championship Drive at Carl Cannon Coliseum, Daniels is putting Jasper High School volleyball on the map.
“This is what I always thought about Jasper when I was teaching and coaching elsewhere,” he says. “My opinion was that they have the potential to be really good. If the right person ever got there and really worked their program, they could do some exceptional things.”
Coach Daniels is that person. He came to JHS five years ago from Arab High School, where he turned the volleyball program into a Class 6A powerhouse, leading those ladies to the Final Four in 2014.
In 2019, Daniels guided the Lady Vikings to an astonishing 63-9 record, en route to their second straight AHSAA Class 5A State Volleyball Championship. The back-to-back championships came after a heartbreaking loss to Pelham High School in the fifth and final set of the 2017 State Finals. The defeat sparked a fire and a hunger to win in the bones of those championship squads. Daniels would steward and stoke their flame.
“Those girls didn’t lose a single set to a 5A school,” Daniels says, beaming with pride. “It’s like a basketball team not being behind a single quarter all season. Last year was a senior-dominated team. Those girls wanted to be pushed and challenged and I found creative ways to motivate them. They were highly competitive and the more I challenged them, the greater they would perform. Those girls weren’t only excellent on the court, but also in the classroom.”
“One of our team goals every year is to play for the state championship,” Daniels adds, his sneakers echoing on the coliseum’s hardwood floors amidst May’s abnormal stillness. “Sometimes we get there and sometimes we don’t, but it is still a goal.”
The locker rooms, weight rooms, hallways, and gymnasiums of the high school are quiet in the absence of students. As with most of the country, the novel coronavirus shut down the school in early March, ultimately cutting the 2019-2020 school year months short. Spring training for the Fall 2020 season has been cancelled and athletes are quarantined to their homes. Daniels has encouraged his athletes to continue working out at home to keep their bodies and minds in championship form with a three-peat on the horizon. He is hopeful there will be a 2020 volleyball season, but it is still up in the air.
“I’ll have a small number of seniors returning. I’ll have about half of my team, the nucleus from last season, coming back,” Daniels says. “I’ll need some young girls to step up.”
Already, he has filled the whiteboards with new workouts, drills, and the names of opponents. A mountain of 2020 Vikings Volleyball swag bags are ready to be given out. “When we won the state championship this year, my message to the team was that the standard had been set, and we are not going to lower the standard,” Daniels says. “’It’s y’all’s job to rise up and continue what we’ve started. Let’s get ready to do this again.’”
Daniels’ first volleyball head coaching opportunity came in 2004 at Winston County High School while he was still principal at Double Springs Elementary School—“I volunteered, basically. I said, let me do it,” he says.
He took his first team to the State Volleyball Tournament, setting a trajectory for years of success. He then led two Winston County High School squads to the State Finals but was never able to capture a championship with the Yellowjackets. He would, however, win his first title in 2018 with the Jasper High girls. “Off the top of my head, my record is 815 wins to 200 or so losses,” he smiles. (Officially, it is 815 wins to 212 losses.) “It is hard to describe the feeling of winning your first championship. It’s a great feeling.”
Winning is simply in Bobby Daniels’ DNA. Since the seventh grade, he knew he wanted to be a teacher and a coach. The Double Springs native was a scholarship basketball player at Brewer State Junior College (now Bevill State Community College in Fayette) before obtaining his bachelor’s degree in Physical Education from Southern Wesleyan University—a watershed moment that launched him into a successful 37-year career in public education. He served as a teacher, an assistant principal, and eventually a principal before retiring from teaching full-time in 2012.
Daniels began his coaching career as the boys’ basketball and football coach at Berry High School in the 1980s. Volleyball wasn’t even on his radar until his two daughters, Cassie and Kryssi, got him interested. Now the sport has taken over his coaching world.
With Daniels at the helm for the foreseeable future, the Lady Vikings won’t be slowing down any time soon. Daniels is harnessing Jasper’s athletic potential by creating onramps for young girls to get involved in Viking Volleyball through youth camp and youth leagues. He has developed a succinct training system that begins in junior high school in order to groom the next generation of champions. Over time, he is building a volleyball family in the world. As Daniels says, “the most team-oriented sport” will be on the same page, working as a singular unit.
Bobby Daniels is more than a coach. He is a father of daughters. He is a father of champions. 78