Q & A with Craig Mosqueda

I did a short phone interview with Craig Mosqueda shortly after the announcement that he would be leaving Asbury to take the job as Head Volleyball Coach at Anderson University (S.C.). Here’s an excerpt:

TY: How did you hear about the job?

CM: I saw it on the NCAA Web site back in January. I figured I’d start looking early enough where I thought everything would get moved quickly and Asbury would already be searching for a replacement. But they didn’t call me till March, so I didn’t think I even got it.

Will you be able to help Asbury find a replacement?

I’d like to. I’m only going to be around till May 10. I don’t know when they’ll start looking. They can’t announce it here (in Anderson) yet until my last background check comes in.

NCAA Division II seems like a big step up from NAIA — is it?

It is. There’s a little bit of a learning curve as far as recruiting, and obviously the school’s policies are different than Asbury’s, so I’m learning quickly this week. We have athletic scholarships, and we can stack them on top of our academic scholarships, which is different than at Asbury.

Talk about the solid core of players that you will be taking over.

Most of the kids (from last year’s conference championship team) are still here. They lost three to graduation, and one kid left. The unfortunate thing is I’m getting started late in the recruiting scheme, so anybody who’s still out there, either no one’s really recruiting them, or they left because of a coaching change or something.

Talk about leaving Asbury after eight seasons.

I’m probably leaving behind one of my strongest teams. I wanted a challenge. I wanted something different. Doing all the jobs I was doing here with real estate, coaching, teaching, the job at Jessamine County, I was just stretched too thin. I just wanted to coach.