February 6, 2007
By Brian Hillabush

The 2007 Volleyball season was ushered in in style and class at the Inagural VolleyFX Hall of Fame Gala. The event, both honoring those who have contributed greatly to the sport and a fundraiser for the club to help keep costs low for its membership, was a huge success. With more than $1,000.00 in donated prizes, $2,000.00 in fundraised monies and more than 100 attendees the event was received wonderfully by the Western New York community.

The event featured Olympic Gold Medalist Cathy Turner as key note speaker who spoke to the audience about her experiences and drive as a competitor. She spoke to the athletes about mental imaging and focus, and inspired those who attended... and that was just the start. Even greater inspiration came from the inductees that followed.

The first inductee, Cal Wickens was just looking for a way to keep playing volleyball when he founded the Rochester Volleyball Club in 1979. There is no way he could have expected that 27 years later the club that he started would have grown to the point that it would have a new home court, many Division I scholarship athletes and 17 teams.

"It was for a playing purpose," said Wickens, who headlined the first VolleyFX Hall of Fame class that was inducted Saturday night at Hot Shots Volleyball Club. "I started it with Cindy D’Errico and I said you coach the guys and I’ll coach the girls. It was purely to play the sport we love."

The club has gone through name changes and has gained respect nationally. But back in 1979, Wickens and his teams couldn’t even practice.

"We basically had two travel teams, a men’s and a women’s team," Wickens said. "It consisted of players from Albany, Syracuse, Buffalo and around Rochester just to make a team. We went to Toronto, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Princeton and New York City. We couldn’t even practice against other people because there was seven to 10 people that played at that level."

Wickens is considered the founding father of volleyball in Rochester and coaches many camps, is the head coach at Nazareth College and spent 10 years as a try out coach for the USA High Performance/Youth National Team. He also is a representative for the Western Empire Volleyball Association and USA Volleyball Junior Committee.

The initial Hall of Fame class shows how much the club has changed and grown. Joining Wickens in the class is Leigh Launhardt and the 2003-2004 VolleyFX Magic team. Launhardt is the first VolleyFX player to receive a Division I scholarship, getting a free ride to Canisius College in 2002.

"When I started it wasn’t even VolleyFX, it was Pace," said Launhardt, who played with the club for five years. "The name has changed, the coaches have changed ... there have been so many changes. I also coach in Buffalo and we played VolleyFX and it was awesome to see how much they’ve grown and changed."

Launhardt graduated from Canisius in 2006 and is currently working on her Master’s Degree. She was a senior on the volleyball team this past year because she missed one season with a torn ACL. She is the school’s all-time leader in career block assists with 217 and ranks fourth in school history with 1.01 blocks per game. Launhardt returned from the injury last season and finished third on the team with 234 kills, getting double figure kills in 11 matches. She was named to the MAAC All-Academic Team for the second time. Canisius went 22-10 last year.

"It’s going very well," Launhardt said. "I broke some records at school and this past season we had our best record ever at school. It was a team effort and a lot of fun."

Launhardt put the club on the map as the first scholarship athlete, but it was the 2003-2004 Magic team that established the club as dominant on a national scale. That team won seven of 11 tournaments, including NEQ 18’s Club Qualifier and the East Coast Championships.

"It was magical," said Hannah Sharp, who was the team’s captain. "We put in so much hard work and to see that come back and make us successful; you see all the hard work and realize it was worth it. We definitely did get put on the map. New York was not know as a prestigious volleyball place. To get recognized in other states was awesome."

All nine members of the team are - or will be - playing at Division I schools. Sharp is at Oklahoma University while Jen Albrecht (Virginia Tech), Stephanie Jansma (North Carolina), Kate Love (University at Buffalo), Rachel Schamberger (High Point University), Rachel Smith (University at Buffalo) and Jessica Stackhouse (Canisius College) are all scholarship athletes. Anne Marie Vanden Boom was playing in the Ivy League at Cornell University and Alyssa D’Errico will attend Penn State University next year.

"I used to drive to tournaments and kids would ask us where we were from," Wickens said. "I would say Rochester, New York and they would say they never get out there. Everywhere we went was to the West. Now when I go places and say where I’m from, they know it is the home of VolleyFX. (That team) set the table for things to come."

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