Irvine Valley volleyball happy to have May and Baxter on board

Irvine Valley women's volleyball coach Tom Pestolesi was excited to add two new assistant coaches to his staff this season.

One is a long-time friend and volleyball legend, while the other was one of the best men's volleyball players to compete at IVC.

Butch May and Kaleo Baxter joined the staff this summer and are already paying dividends for the Lasers, who have started the season with a record of 6-0 and are ranked No. 1 in Southern California and No. 2 in the state.

"Having them is so much fun," Pestolesi said. "We have some impressive volleyball minds in the gym with Butch and (associate head coach) Ki Yi and Kaleo. It helps make my job so much easier."

May actually started helping Pestolesi last spring with the college's women's sand volleyball program. May helped lead Irvine Valley to its second straight state club title.

He knows a thing or two about both the indoor and outdoor games.

As a player, he was part of the Santa Monica College national collegiate championship team in 1964.

In 1964, May was also selected as an alternate on the U.S. men's Olympic team. He was on the 1968 Olympic team and was part of the U.S. national team program from 1965-1969.

He also helped guide one of the best beach volleyball players in the history of the sport - his daughter Misty May Treanor. She was a three-time Olympic gold medalist with partner Kerri Walsh Jennings.

"Butch is awesome," Pestolesi said. "Everyone loves him. The players think of him like a grandpa, but he is a grandpa that acts like a 10 year old. He is fun and funny, but at the same time, he knows so much about the game of volleyball.

"And what I really like is that he focuses on all of the little things. That is the way Misty was, she was good at all of the little things and she learned that from him. Butch stresses those things every day. It is nice to see someone who played in the 1960's and in the Olympics still understand how important it is to take care of this and do that, make plays you are supposed to and never take anything for granted."

Baxter is a former Irvine Valley men's volleyball standout.

He joined the IVC staff after spending the last three seasons as a volunteer assistant coach at the University of Hawaii.

While with Hawaii, Baxter helped create practice plans and put together scouting reports of opposing teams among his other coaching and training duties.

Baxter, originally from Kapaa, Kauai, helped Irvine Valley to Pacific Coast Athletic Conference titles and the CCCAA State Championships titles in 2007 and 2008.

In 2008, the libero was selected first-team all-conference and named to the state all-tournament team. He averaged 2.77 digs per set and set a school record with 27 digs against LA Pierce College.

Baxter played libero, defensive specialist and was used as a serving specialist at Cal State Northridge from 2009-11.

"It is fun having kids that you love to coach that come back to your program and then do a great job," Pestolesi said. "He had a great three years at Hawaii and learned a lot under coach Dave Shoji there.

"Kaleo just loves being in the gym and coaching the game. He is really becoming a great coach. We are fortunate to have him."