Bowling Green State University Athletics
Voll Joins Hall Of Fame
October 03, 2002 | Women's Basketball
Sept. 13, 2002
By DAMON BECK, Sentinel Sports Writer - Although nobody knew it at the time, Fran Voll was well on his way to Bowling Green State University's Athletic Hall of Fame before he even coached his first collegiate game.
Voll, the women's basketball coach from 1984-91, will be inducted into the hall of fame tonight along with men's soccer player Rob Martella (1994), hockey player Greg Parks, and track and field athlete and coach Tom Wright (1966).
In the fall of 1984 and before the start of his first season at BG, Voll signed three players who comprised what is still widely considered the best women's basketball recruiting class ever in the Mid-American Conference.
In the following years, Voll continued to convince some of the most talented high school players in the Midwest, and especially Ohio, to come and play basketball at BG. They all had one thing in common -- a burning desire to win.
"The big break for us was getting the right kids here right away," Voll said. "Floor coaching is sometimes over-rated. I always did a good job of putting the parameters down for the players, then letting the kids perform."
When his players got to BG, Voll expected them to play good fundamental basketball. The Falcons took good shots and hit the offensive boards. On defense it was a straight up man-to-man, game-in and game-out. If any opponent had better players that could beat BG's head-to-head, one-on-one, more power to them.
Almost nobody did.
The rest is history -- two undefeated conference seasons, four MAC tournament titles, three regular-season MAC championships, four trips to the NCAA tournament.
In the four championship seasons of 1986-90, Voll's teams averaged 25 wins per season with just five losses a year, including a 67-6 mark against MAC opponents.
In 1989-90, the Falcons lost twice in the regular season to Toledo, but beat the Rockets in the MAC tournament on the way to their fourth straight tourney title. In his career Voll was 11-3 versus BG's arch-rival.
"Fran established a standard at BG for everyone who follows him to shoot at," said Jack Gregory, the BG athletic director who hired Voll. "He laid the foundation and built on it from there."
By the time that first class of power forward Jackie Motycka, point-guard Paulette Backstrom, and wing Megan McGuire were done, BG was the dominant team in the MAC and BG's women's sports were on the national map.
"We had some people like Sid Sink with women's track and cross country and Denise (Van De Walle) with volleyball who were doing some very positive things at about the same time. But Fran was the forerunner of great things at BG with women's sports," Gregory said. "His teams were always up at the top and that set the tone for everybody else."
On March 15,1989, 4,100 fans packed Anderson Arena and saw the Falcons beat Cincinnati, 69-59, in a first-round NCAA contest. It was the first time a MAC team had ever advanced past the first round in the national tournament.
"That game was the culmination of years of work that we put together," Voll said. "To win that game and to attract that crowd was the fulfillment of all the expectations. We did everything we could for a team in our conference at that time."
Voll came to BG as the most successful high school girls' coach in the country. He had a record of 208-17 in nine years at Delphos St. John's. His teams won the state title three times.
Gregory wanted Voll not only because of his success on the court but to take advantage of the contacts Voll had developed around the state with other high school coaches.
"We had a decent program that had been down for a couple of years before Fran came aboard," Gregory said. "We needed some strength in recruiting in state and Fran brought that along with him."
Voll, a 1968 BG grad, finished his seven-year stint at the Falcon helm with an overall record of 144-60. He resigned his coaching position to become a BG athletic department administrator and later spent four years as the head women's coach at Central Michigan. His overall coaching totals for wins overall (187) and in league play (116) still rank second in MAC history. Voll currently is the principal at his high school alma mater, Marion Catholic.
"Going in the Hall of Fame is certainly one of the highlights, if not the highlight of my career at Bowling Green," Voll said. "I came to Bowling Green as a pretty ordinary kid who was just trying to get through school."
