Hoover welcomed Kirk Sharma as the new head coach for the boys’ volleyball program.

This is Sharma’s first year teaching in Hoover, where he serves as a social studies teacher.

This is Sharma’s fourth year coaching volleyball. He coached at the middle school level for three years.

“We had some success last year. We made it to finals and it was a very exciting run in our school,” he said.

He wants to develop a program at Hoover that has players who enjoy what they are doing and take the sport seriously.

“We have to practice at a high level, compete at a high level, learn from our mistakes and not get down on ourselves for our losses,” he said.

He says running the program can be challenging.

“I get busy with all of my responsibilities at Hoover, so the time commitment can be challenging,” Sharma says. “Stuff like organizing a schedule and ordering jerseys is also challenging.”

Sharma is also working with Christian Hong, a co-head coach for the boys’ volleyball program.

“We’re all helping each other,” Sharma said. “Coach Hong and I come in with different skill sets and I think our strengths complement each other’s weaknesses.

“I think I’m good at team building, getting students to have confidence in themselves building up the right culture whereas coach Hong knows volleyball like the back of his hand,” Sharma said.

Sharma said it is going take time to build the program.

“I feel like we have really good coaches, really good players that like to be around each other and we have a lot of support from our admin team as well,” he said.

“Rome was not built in a day but we are definitely taking positive steps forward to creating a winning program here in Hoover.”