MATT OSBORNE: 2002-2009

   Matt is a two-time Seaside Hall of Famer, both as a coach and a player.  Actually, he is the only Hall of Fame coach to have played for Seaside.  Matt was a starter on the ’97 18 Seaside Black team that won the National Championship in Denver, Colorado.  

      Matt started out assisting Sonny Knight in 2002, with the 16-1 team that finished 5th at the JO’s.  From 2003 on, Matt coached numerous teams at different age levels, highlighted by a 2nd place finish at the SoCal Classic as the 17-1 team head coach in 2004; and a 5th place finish as the 16-1 team head coach at the Nationals in Louisville, Kentucky in 2005.  Prior to the start of the ’06 season, the club debated whether to play a junior high setting sensation – Tien Le – down, but Matt lobbied to get him to play up on the 15-1 team.  The year before (2005), as a 12 year old, Tien led Jim Harrah’s 14 team to a 5th place finish at JO’s.  In ’07, Matt led the 16-1 team to a 9th place finish at Jo’s as Tien turned 14 years old.  In ’08, he coached the 17-1 team to a 7th place finish at Nationals.  Tien was the setter on all those teams and Matt did a great job developing young Tien.  Matt finished up coaching at Seaside in 2009 where he spent the entire year helping Coach Featherstone develop new young coaches to work during the transition from the tent in Del Mar to the state-of-the-art, San Diego Volleyball Club facility in Rancho Bernardo.

      In addition, Matt assisted Coach Featherstone at Grossmont College where he helped guide the Griffins to the SoCal Regional Playoffs in 2007 and 2008.  Rated AAA as a beach player, Matt moved from San Diego to Clearwater, Florida in 2010 to begin a new life and formed his own youth boys and girls club with his girlfriend, Ann.

      Coach Featherstone on Matt Osburn :  “Matt was as passionate a player as the club ever had. . .he was cocky, athletic, a fiery competitor. . .In the ’97 18 & under JO finals, Matt became the go-to guy about halfway through the match with Nike Santa Cruz. . .He really sparked the team and everyone fed off his energy. . .As a coach, he still had the “fire in the belly”, but he was well-composed and patient with his players. . .He liked to work the sideline when coaching and the thing I really liked about Matt was his competitive nature and the unwavering feeling he always had that his teams would always find a way to win. . .Matt took great pride in developing players that were not necessarily the best players. . . He loved the challenge of going into competition with guys who were just a notch below the best, and finding a way to get them big wins. . .As my assistant at Grossmont, I loved this aspect of his mental make-up. . . Many years, we were outclassed, talent-wise, and we had to find unique ways to stay in matches.  Matt was real good at convincing the players they could get it done. . .especially at identifying the weaknesses of the opposing players. . . Along with Sonny, Leo, and Jeff – these loyal, committed, four guys really helped keep our club dominant after the early glory years. . .As a team, they loved working with each other during tournaments and moving from court to court to assist each other. . .It was almost as though all the teams had four coaches with them at some point during the tournaments. . .Their collective enthusiasm was contagious and the players really enjoyed being around these guys. . .On weekends, their enthusiasm for the game was on display in South Mission Beach where they all played some serious beach doubles.”