In the News: Colts’ Swag Starts with Head Coach

 

By Nathan Mollat Daily Journal staff

 

Oct 12, 2023

 

For the last several years, the San Francisco 49ers have used a comically oversized boombox to play music as the team takes the field.

 

The El Camino girls’ volleyball team has similar, but more organic, swag as the 49ers. Even when on the road, the Lady Colts bring a little bit of home-court love with them. Led by head coach Apollo Madayag, the Colts are not intimidated in anyone’s gym.

 

In Tuesday’s crucial win over Woodside, that pulled the Colts into a first-place with the Wildcats atop the Ocean Division standings, the always-boisterous and animated Madayag pleaded, cajoled, yelled, berated and ultimately believed his players could pull off the upset.

 

Maybe Madayag’s plan is to pull all of the opposing team’s attention, and that of their fans, off of his team and onto him.

 

“I’m not everybody’s cup of tea,” Madayag said after his Colts beat the Wildcats in five sets. “You can like me or hate me.”

 

It’s easy to see why. In this day and age, coaches are seemingly supposed to coddle their players. The Colts get no such quarter. Madayag has no problem pulling a star off the floor if they are not performing up to his standards. But he always goes back to them eventually.

 

While not yelling in a mean-spirited way, Madayag certainly can be heard throughout the gym. Some of his antics border on gamesmanship — like when he yells “ball up” as the other team is serving. It’s usually frowned upon to yell during the serve, especially among the crowd. But the Woodside bench didn’t seem to have a problem with it, but the Woodside student section began saying the same during El Camino’s serve, so maybe it’s a wash.

 

And Madayag is just as invested emotionally and physically on the sideline. After wearing a sweater through the first three sets, he removed it and rolled up his short sleeves of his T-shirt for games 4 and 5. He was actually sweating during a post-match interview, which shows how involved he is.

 

And Madayag is hardly a one-man show. He is backed by a crew of about five “team managers,” along with the Colts substitutes. While the managers are tasked with warming up the team before matches, it seems their main job is to give the Colts a cheering section wherever they go. So when the Wildcats committed an infraction, the team manager crew would break into two yells of, “You can’t do that!”

 

This kind of attitude on the bench appears to have rubbed off on the players on the court, as the match got tense during the final two games. During one, long referee discussion, players from both teams began to subtly jaw at each other. El Camino was showing it was not going down without a fight.

 

And as El Camino’s Italia Ghilarducci was in the middle of three straight services aces to help close out the match, she hit a Cam Newton-inspired “dab” toward her bench to show the Colts would not be denied.

 

The Colts are not the biggest team in the PAL and a lot of their game is based on a scrappy personality. But they know how to play the game and with Madayag leading the way, the Colts feel like they belong on the court against anybody.