As he heads toward his final girls volleyball match as coach at La Jolla Country Day School, Peter Ogle recently encountered a former player on campus.

The chance meeting reinforced Ogle’s own personal mission statement as a coach.

“She apologized for the way she acted when she played for me here,” Ogle said. “It was nice to see her maturity.”

The personal growth of his players has become more important than all the wins, all the league championships, all the San Diego Section titles and all three of his state crowns.

 
Ogle, 65, talked about retirement for the last few years, but he made the final decision this summer just prior to the start of his 41st season.

“Peter is like the gym here,” Torreys Athletic Director Jeff Hutzler said. “He’s a fixture.

“He’s approached the coaching job as teaching through the game.

“It could be the fifth set of the state championships or a preseason tournament — and his demeanor is always the same.”

 
A former baseball player-turned-volleyball player, Ogle made the transition to the court playing for coach Jane Ward at Cabrillo College in Aptos.

Ogle, a 1971 graduate of La Jolla Country Day, took over the Torreys in ’78.

He amassed a 737-385 coaching record at his alma mater as he heads into his final regular-season home game Wednesday against Pacific Ridge.

“It all went very fast,” Ogle said. “It doesn’t seem like it should be over so quickly.

“I want to do some writing and develop some products I’ve been thinking about.”

Ogle will leave the Torreys with three Coastal League titles, seven section championships in nine appearances in the finals and the three state titles.

“I’ve been very lucky,” said Ogle, a San Diego State graduate. “I’ve never had to operate under a win-or-else philosophy.

“They told me to do what was right for the kids because my school is selling the idea of turning out good kids.

“It was easy to follow that path.”

Ogle, who also coached the Country Day middle school baseball team, will continue coaching at Coast Volleyball Club and may also help the new La Jolla Country Day coach next fall. But he is looking forward to sleeping in each morning before starting the day’s coaching assignment later on.

La Jolla Country Day is 19-13 overall and 4-4 in the Coastal League standings heading into Wednesday’s game.

“Peter ripped my heart out,” recalled Bishop’s coach Tod Mattox. “When I first got to Bishop’s, we had won two straight CIF titles in Division V (1993-94) and he knocked us out in the finals.

“He found a way to beat us and he had no business beating us, but he convinced his girls they could actually beat us and keep us from a third straight title.

“He and I talk about co-coaching with one of us showing up one day and the other one the next day. We’d just coach, nothing else.”

Ogle pointed out the motto on T-shirts the players wear. It says: “Get Better Each Day.”

“We never talk about winning,” Ogle said. “We talk about playing well.

“At the beginning of each year I think about how good we can be and then we see how close we can get to that number.

“I can’t see a day without volleyball. That’s kind of scary to me.”

Just as scary as it is to future Torreys volleyball teams to be without Ogle.

Monahan is a freelance writer.