“I hope they can use it in a way that suits them best for the development of their players.”
-You met Takahashi Ai when you left Chuo University to become a coach at your alma mater, Higashiyama High School. What was your impression of him at the time?
Matsunaga (hereinafter the same)He was thinner than Yuki. He was good at receiving even back then, but he was still a bit stiff on the offensive side. To be honest, I never expected him to grow so quickly.
— At university, you had Sekita and Ishikawa, and at high school, you had Takahashi. Some people wonder, “Mr. Matsunaga, how many great athletes have you attracted?” What do you think?
I am the person they can use to help them grow, go out into the world, and do what they want to do, and I think we met at that time. So I just hope they can use me when it suits them, and I don’t think of myself as having “gained anything.”
I think the same when I look back on my career. I started playing volleyball in elementary school and was selected for the junior high school team, but I was put in a different position than I should have just because I was big.
In high school, his best result was reaching the quarterfinals of the Inter-High School Championships, but he never won a championship. He joined the Panasonic Panthers (now the Osaka Bulleteon) and was selected for the Japanese national team, but was soon dropped. Even after transferring to Toyoda Gosei Trefuerza (now the Wolfdogs Nagoya), he did not get a chance to play, and he ended up retiring due to a shoulder injury.
I had no experience, and since I became a coach, I had to build everything from scratch, and I had little experience as a coach. When I was struggling, Yuki decided to come to Chuo University, and I was desperate to “do something for him.” It’s a cycle that repeats itself.
When he came to Higashiyama High School, the team had been far from the national tournament, so when Ai entered her third year, he said, “I will definitely take them to the national tournament,” and “I will turn this team, which has never been number one in Japan, into number one in Japan.”
I don’t have any luck, but people who have luck attract it to me and use it for their own growth. That’s how I think life is.
Source: Japan