San Diego Volleyball Club began in 1986 when Dick Templeman and Dave Whittaker took their initial teams to the Junior Olympics in Minneapolis. SDVBC is now: San Diego/ Seaside Volleyball Club with seventeen girls’ travel teams and nine boys’ travel teams.

In 1987 Whittaker and Templeman brought in John Cook as the Club’s head coach, who had an impressive overall record of 162-18 in his six years as the head coach at Francis Parker High School. In 1988, Cook’s SDVBC 18-1 team took third at nationals. In a short time, Cook’s career led him to coach at the collegiate level, where he found much success as the head coach at The University of Nebraska. Cook was later inducted into the AVCA Hall of Fame in 2017.

Taking the mentorship and lessons learned from Cook, Whittaker continued to build on the Club’s successes. Whittaker coached the 18-1 girls for ten years and the 18-1 boys for three years. For five years, Whittaker’s team was in the top 10 in the nation, including winning a national championship and earning third in the nation. San Diego Volleyball Club was on the map and was a nationally recognized club.

From the start, SDVBC was forced to turn away numerous boys and girls trying out for the extremely limited number of travel team spots available each season. After 2-3 years of watching talented, heartbroken players walking out the door, Dave created the Local Program, which remains one of the Club’s signature programs to this day. The program does not require a tryout, meaning no one is cut from a team. It gives the SDVBC Local teams the opportunity to play against other clubs in the San Diego area, rather than traveling throughout the state and country. The SDVBC Local Program still serves as a cornerstone of the greater San Diego volleyball community by making the sport/competition accessible for players of all experience levels.

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