There have been a lot of incredible and historic sports seasons at Fairfield University over the years. The 1998 volleyball season was one of them.
 
By Chris Elsberry

They came into Alumni Hall smarting from a previous day's five-set loss to UConn in Storrs and Notre Dame was fully expecting to get back on the winning track in relatively easy fashion against Fairfield.
 
Or so they thought.
 
In 1997, the Fighting Irish won the Big East tournament title, reached the third round of the NCAA tournament and finished ranked No. 18 in the country. And in the early stages of the 1998 season, losses to Illinois State, Wisconsin, Michigan State and Indiana had just knocked Notre Dame out of the Top 25, leaving the Irish feisty and focused.
 
Just not as feisty and focused as Fairfield.
 
"I think they came into the gym just about 20 minutes before the start of the match thinking they were going to run all over us," said setter Liz Bower, a junior that season. "We beat them in five sets … you always remember the big wins."
 
In a season where Fairfield won 27 straight matches, finished 35-2, won the MAAC tournament title, played Clemson in the NCAA tournament and boasted an RPI of 23, this 16-14, 13-15, 15-8, 4-15, 17-15 win over Notre Dame on October 10, 1998 in front of almost 1,000 fans, was the high water mark of a campaign that also saw the Stags defeat Seton Hall, Alabama, Iowa, Rice, Mississippi State, Miami (Ohio), Villanova, Boston College, Holy Cross, St. John's and finish a perfect 9-0 in conference play.
 
"We beat everyone that year," Bower said. "What '98 told me was that excellence was built on habits. What we saw in '98 were the daily habits that (head coach) Todd (Kress) created and seeing them come to fruition."
 
In the summer of 1995, athletic director Gene Doris took a chance on Kress, who had been an assistant for two seasons at Thomas More College in Northern Kentucky and played collegiately at Cincinnati – not exactly the resume to entrust with building the foundation toward a successful program.

"I have to give a lot of credit to Tracy Flynn, who was the assistant athletic director at the time. She was in charge of the (volleyball coaching) search and it was she that got him to me," Doris said. "She did a terrific job in identifying someone whom she thought could really lead the program to another level. If she didn't get him through the first piece of the puzzle, I might not have seen him."
 
But Flynn did and when the two formally met, it didn't take long for the athletic director to decide that Kress was right hire for the job.
 
"I was impressed with his confidence level and I liked the programs that he had been a part of in the past," Doris said. "While he might not have had the experience of being a head coach, I liked what he said in terms of what he believed in building the culture of a program and the fact that he felt very confident in his ability to recruit. He made it connect with me."
 
"It was my first head coaching job and to be honest, I didn't quite know what I was doing," Kress said. "I just knew that I wanted to build a program. I give a huge amount of credit to Gene … we had conversations on how this was a gold mine waiting to happen, a kind of diamond in the rough. It just needed funding, needed the scholarship dollars and the recruiting dollars for that to happen. I don't think he would have made those things available to me if he didn't believe in me as a coach."
 
In the four seasons that Kress first directed the Fairfield program – 1995 to 1998 – the Stags went from a program that had posted just two winning seasons in 10 years, to a program that won three MAAC regular season titles and went to two NCAA tournaments before Kress left to explore other coaching opportunities.
 
Returning in 2014, Kress has led Fairfield to four more MAAC regular season crowns, four more MAAC tournament titles and four more appearances in the NCAA tournament.
 
Overall, Fairfield has won 18 MAAC regular season championships, 11 MAAC tournament crowns and has been to the NCAA tournament 11 times.
 
Kind of sounds like a dynasty, doesn't it?
 
"I would hesitate to use that word," Kress said. "But I will say this, you can't overlook what we've done. We've done an incredible job with what we've had … dynasty? That's a huge word. We are a very successful program that's been composed of incredible student athletes that have had a great amount of success. It's a family, a very successful family."
 
Finding the perfect fit
 
But in the beginning, success was hard to find. Jeanne Osborn was named the first volleyball coach at Fairfield in 1985 and left after two losing seasons. Arnetha Eaddy followed in 1987 and stayed four years, posting winning campaigns (23-15) in 1988 and (17-12) in 1989. Andrea Costa was next for three seasons and Ed Bengermino lasted just one before Doris decided to take a change on a little-known assistant from a tiny NAIA college located in Crestview Hills, Kentucky.
 
"I played volleyball in college at Cincinnati and I was a broadcasting major," Kress said. "A guy I knew at Thomas More called me and said that he needed some help coaching volleyball because his assistant had just bailed on him and he needed someone right away. He asked me to coach and I went, 'Yeah, no.' But I decided to help him out and I've been doing it ever since."
 
Kress' head coach while at Cincinnati was Mike Ligenfelter, who currently owns and coaches Asics Munciana Volleyball in Muncie, Ind., and had previously led Wapahani (Ind.) High School to three state championships.
 
"He's recognized as one of the top coaches in the sport," Kress said of Ligenfelter. "I was so fortunate to have him as my coach and I learned so much. I watched his passion for the sport and the way he coaches. I learned a lot from him in the beginning, for sure."
 
One of the first things that Kress did when he arrived at Fairfield was change the mentality of the sport, turning it from what he called 'a rec program' into a focused Division I program.
 
"I thought there was a ton to sell," Kress said. "At that point, the program was treated more like a recreation program rather than a division I varsity sport, to be honest. So, we really required more commitment from the university and the student athletes, more buy-in and we started to recruit nationally. We went to places like California, Texas and Arizona recruiting to raise the standard of the program by raising the standard of the student-athlete we brought in."
 
"Todd wasn't kidding, the program needed a much bigger commitment that it had at the beginning," Doris said. "How bad were things? We had been using an illegal volleyball net. It looked like a giant slingshot, that's the best way to put it. It was fastened with two bungie cords to the bleachers. When I first saw it, I said, 'You've got to be kidding me.' And the budget, honestly … it wasn't anywhere near what you would find at a decent Division III school. The culture of the program was there was no commitment to winning at all."
 
But Kress started turning that mindset around through recruiting. One student-athlete he brought in was Joanne Saunders, who played at Fairfield from 1998 through 2001, going to four consecutive NCAA tournaments and winning three MAAC regular season crowns. Saunders attended Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose, Calif., playing with Kerri Walsh, the three-time Olympic gold medal winner in beach volleyball. Lost in the shadow of Walsh at Archbishop Mitty, Saunders took the spotlight at Fairfield, leading the Stags to that 35-2 mark as a freshman and finishing with a four-year record of 110-26.
 
"Where I went to high school, the program was really excellent," Saunders said. "We had some incredible players on that team and when Todd came … it definitely caught me off-guard, I mean, where's Fairfield, Connecticut? That was my naivete being 17 years old and living in my own world. But I started talking with him and when I visited the campus and met the team, that was the big difference. Yes, there were some higher profile teams that I could have played for, but I wanted to physically play and not just sit on the bench. At Fairfield, I got to help build a program, play a lot and meet many of my best friends. That's how it all unraveled."
 
In the Fairfield record book, Saunders ranks first all-time in kills (1,799), second in kills per set (4.06), first in attack attempts (4,253), seventh in service aces (147), 11th in digs (1,254) and eighth in sets played (443).
 
But she's not alone. Bower -- who played from 1996-99, is the Stags all-time leader in assists (5,213), third in service aces (184), 15th in digs (1,072) and third in sets played (466) -- and Corrine Carlson, who played from 1997-2000, stands ninth in kills (1,193), fifth in attack percentage (.327), tied for fourth in service aces (155), seventh in digs (1,397), fifth in blocks (327), sixth in solo blocks (61) and fourth in sets played (464). Sara Lein is absent from the charts solely because she didn't play four seasons with the Stags, but she left her mark in 1998 as the MAAC Player of the Year. Lein hit .369 -- a then-program record and still fourth all-time -- to lead the high-powered Fairfield attack.
 
All of these pieces and more came together on that '98 squad that stands as the greatest in volleyball – and possibly university – history.
 
"I feel '98 gets overlooked as one of the greatest team ever at Fairfield. That year, it was the perfect storm," Kress said. "That team beat Notre Dame, they beat Iowa, they beat Alabama, Miami of Ohio, UTEP (University of Texas El Paso). They had a ton of significant wins, they ended up with an RPI of 24. They have to be considered one of the top teams ever to play at Fairfield."
 
"It definitely had a lot to do with chemistry," Carlson said. "We all had the same drive, we all worked really hard, we all wanted to win and make sure we won as a team. We were all so competitive, always be diving for balls, everyone going all-out. It was just a great team to be on."
 
"There were no excuses," added Saunders. "It was all hard work, all the time and the standard was set high from the beginning. Athleticism and chemistry, we had the whole thing."
 
And Kress changing the program's philosophy made the Stags the Northeast power that it remains to this day.
 
"I would say, that 25 years ago, a winning tradition didn't exist at Fairfield," Bower said. "But Todd came in and he sold us on his vision. He was turning the program around. I remember going into my first season, Fairfield was ranked about 355th out of 370 teams and by our junior year we were in the Top 25. That vision of success was remarkable."
 
Added Doris, "One thing Todd did extremely well was bring in kids that were totally committed to understanding what it meant to change the culture of a program. Liz Bower, Joanne Saunders, Jennifer McLaughilin … they were all kids that came from club programs that were committed to winning and were all playing at a national level. They were the anchors for him to be able to change the culture."

Read Part II on the continuing legacy of Fairfield Volleyball