When the Red Dragons deliver a stunning World Championship or the Yellow Tigers crush the Netherlands at a European Championship, the average volleyball fan looks at the shiny end product. The hard smashes of Ferre Reggers, the leadership of Sam Deroo or the explosiveness of Britt Herbots seem self-evident. The figures do not lie either: more than 74 percent of the current Yellow Tigers and 64 percent of the Red Dragons received their training at the Topsportschool in Vilvoorde. In the national youth teams, that share even rises to a staggering 80 percent. Vilvoorde is the undisputed cradle, the lifeline and the beating heart of Belgian elite volleyball. For more than thirty years now.

But anyone who steps into the Eurovolleycenter today can hardly imagine on what amateurish, almost impossible ruins this success story was built thirty years ago. In 1994 there was nothing: no budget from the federation, no official boarding school, no elite sport status and certainly no societal recognition. The idea of plucking fourteen-year-old teenagers from under their parents’ wings was laughed off by the volleyball federation as a romantic illusion. The fact that the Topsportschool came into existence at all is the result of pure stubbornness, pioneering spirit and the inexhaustible passion of one man and his network: Swa Depelchin.

Swa — now 82 springs young, as sharp as a teenager and a walking encyclopedia of Belgian volleyball history — stood at the cradle of what today is a well-oiled elite sport machine. He was the man who recruited Vilvoorde host families via the local newspaper, who drove pubescent girls to the sports hall in his car with the fifth girl invariably having to lie across the laps of the other three in the back, and whose daughter voluntarily absorbed the terrible homesickness of the very first generation. Without Swa Depelchin, without the pioneering role of people like Koen Hoeyberghs and Julien Vleminckx, and without the legendary cash envelopes for the coaches, Belgian volleyball would look radically different today.

Swa, we have to go back thirty years. The volleyball school project was originally supposed to start in Leuven or Dilbeek in 1994. How close was the whole idea to a silent death before Vilvoorde came into the picture?
Swa Depelchin: “It really hung by a thread. Julien Vleminckx, then sports director of the federation, and Koen Hoeyberghs desperately wanted to start. Koen had seen in Switzerland that a central elite school for girls did work. But the problem was: we needed a boarding school. We went to schools in Leuven and Dilbeek, but they all shook their heads. That was totally new, you know. Volleyball? Adapted hours? Which meals? The school boards did not know what to do with it and rejected it. The federation at that time also saw absolutely no point in it and refused to release a budget. Julien was on the verge of throwing in the towel. But I was then youth responsible for volleyball in Flemish Brabant, published the magazine VolleyBrabant and knew the educational field in Vilvoorde through my work at the Our Lady College. I said: ‘In Vilvoorde we have a fantastic school, only… we have no boarding school.’ If we could find host families, we could start. And the then principal of the College also went along with the story.”

How on earth did you get Vilvoorde families to simply take in strange elite sport children of fourteen for a sport that was barely on the map at the time?
(laughs) “With a lot of inventiveness and a good dose of cheek! E-mails or mobile phones did not exist yet. We gave letters to students, but absolutely no one responded. Then I went to ‘your advert paper’, the most read advertising paper in the region. A friendly journalist, Mr Corbanie — whose son actually still played at Antwerp last season — got behind it and wrote a big appeal with my telephone number from the college on it. The influx of players was also extremely tight. Julien Vleminckx had said: ‘We only start if we have six players. At five we pack up.’ We managed, just barely, to get exactly six girls. At the interprovincial tournaments we discovered Frauke Dierickx, and from West Flanders came the sisters Kim and Chaïne Staelens. And so in September 1995 we started with six girls in host families. Back then, Radio 2 journalist Kris Baert and Radio 1 journalist Peter Van den Bempt also got me an interview on their respective stations. And on top of that with Ring-TV, the local TV channel, the inhabitants of Vilvoorde became a bit more aware of this ‘exceptional project’. One year later it was still only girls, only in 1997 did the boys join.”

How did those parents experience that back then? You do not just give away your fourteen-year-old daughter to a completely strange family in Vilvoorde…
“That was enormously difficult. People knew boarding schools, but a host family? That was emotionally a very heavy step. Parents gave away their child for volleyball, but expected guarantees from me that everything was 100 percent right on a personal and educational level. To cope with that, I involved my middle daughter Kirsten. She had just completed three years of psychology in Antwerp and had been taught by sports psychologist Bert De Cuyper. Kirsten voluntarily intensively coached that first generation of girls for five years. She absorbed the homesickness, helped with puberty problems and was the confidant at the kitchen table. Frauke Dierickx still sees Kirsten regularly today. Frauke has often told me: ‘Swa, if Kirsten had not been there to support me during the difficult moments, I would have stopped and gone home.’ And just think what that would have meant for Belgian women’s volleyball. Frauke later became the best setter our country has ever known. The Staelens sisters also reached the European top.”

There is enormous charm around those pioneering years. You drove those girls yourself to the training sessions?
“Unimaginable times! On Wednesday afternoons Koen Hoeyberghs gave training at the Eurovolleycenter. But the girls were at school in the centre of Vilvoorde, about five kilometres away. Public transport was barely available at that time. So I loaded those six girls into my own car every Wednesday. One girl got out halfway at her host family, but that did mean that the fifth girl always had to lie across the laps of the other three in the back on the way! That was every week roaring laughter in the car. Or take Kim Staelens. The coaches sometimes found her ‘far too playful’ at the beginning. But Kim had a very strange growth spurt: one leg grew a centimetre, and only months later did the other follow. She had to wear a special splint or cast to be able to train. So she stood there training with one half-coloured leg and enormous willpower. Within the host family one player flourished a bit faster than the other, but the dynamic was beautiful.”

The story goes that the federation had not a cent for the volleyball school in the early years. Is it true that the coaches literally had to be paid with cash money from ‘Santa Claus envelopes’?
“That is not a myth, that is the bare truth. The board of the then KBVBV wanted nothing to do with it. They gave no money, because they did not believe in it. But the coaches that Koen Hoeyberghs recruited naturally had to receive some compensation, however small. The then Volley Vlaanderen did pay the coaches, but completely insufficiently for the pioneering work that the coaches performed. The parents themselves raised money through a private initiative. That money came to me and so we could also give them an extra envelope at Sinterklaas, Christmas and New Year. On top of that I received tremendous moral support from Bert Dierickx, Frauke’s father. Bert was retired and said: ‘Swa, what you are doing is super, do not let yourself be buried.’
The turnaround at the federation only came in our third working year. In 1998 the U18 European Championship took place. In the Belgian selection of ten players there were seven girls from our ‘volleyball school’ — because it was not yet officially called topsportschool. Belgium finished fourth at that Euro, the best result ever until then. Suddenly the gentlemen of the federation scratched their heads. Marc Spaenjers, who replaced Julien Vleminckx, came to me and said: ‘Swa, we must urgently continue this and also start with the boys!’”

How did the volleyball school eventually transform into the official elite institute that it became in 1998?
“We owe that to the Flemish government and then Minister of Education Luc Van den Bossche. Ivo Van Aken, the big man from tennis, went knocking at the cabinet. Sabine Appelmans had just broken through, but had no secondary diploma because of her tennis. Van Aken pleaded for a legal framework to combine elite sport and studies. Ivo called Julien Vleminckx, and so we suddenly found ourselves around the table with the BOIC, the BLOSO, the education branches and the cabinet. In 1998 the elite sport status was officially formalised. But the location was fiercely fought over! The chance that volleyball would move to Leuven was big and Jean-Marie Dedecker was assigned Vilvoorde for his Judo School. After a lot of tugging and pulling, Jean-Marie’s preference was eventually respected and his topsportschool ended up in West Flanders. And with one last visit to the ministerial cabinet we could finally keep the topsportschool for volleyball definitively in the Volleyball Centre of Vilvoorde.”

With the arrival of the boys in 1998 the host family system burst at the seams. You had to move to a boarding school in Laeken. That produced a legendary anecdote…
(bursts out laughing) “Well, yes! I had 15 host families, but for that bunch of boys that was no longer sustainable. I found a boarding school at the Royal Atheneum of Laeken. Just imagine: we came from a Catholic college and ended up in a state education atheneum. I was appointed to the board of that boarding school. One evening I was in a meeting at the Eurovolleycenter when my phone rang. The manager of the boarding school in Laeken, completely in panic: ‘Swa, come here now, those volleyball guys are turning the whole place upside down!’ Marc Spaenjers and I immediately got in the car to Laeken. When we arrived, all those guys of fifteen, sixteen years were standing in a row in the corridor in their pyjamas and nightgowns, shivering, because they had raised hell. From Laeken they later moved to Ganshoren, to finally settle permanently in the boarding school at the Eurovolleycenter.”

Can you still bring a few generations to mind?
“Absolutely. Fien Callens, Matthijs Verhanneman, Els Vandesteene and Tom van Walle were entrants in 2003, in 2004 you had among others Bram Van den Dries, Simon Van de Voorde and in 2005 followed Yana De Leeuw, Katrien Gielen, Lore Gillis, Hélène Rousseaux, Matthias Valkiers and Pieter Verhees. Of course, the current stars of our national teams come from the Topsportschool.”

Besides the Topsportschool you, together with Emile Rousseaux and Karin Wallyn, also stood at the cradle of the Movement School for children between 3 and 10 years. Do you still see that philosophy of broad motor development sufficiently today?
“That remains my absolute hobby horse. If children want to do sport, you must first teach them to move broadly before you lock them onto a volleyball court. When I read texts by Emile Rousseaux, I first thought: what kind of special bird is that? (laughs) But I brought him to Grimbergen. Emile watched our youth for half a year and said: ‘Swa, we have to start completely at the beginning. Those children are motorically unskilled.’ That is how the Movement School came into being. Ivo Van Aken even came to Grimbergen to watch how we approached that. Today I see that the Topsportschool has become a well-oiled elite sport machine. Where it used to be much more playful, there is now a real elite sport mentality from day one. That is a good thing for the level, but we must never forget that the basis of all ball and running sports lies in that broad, refined motor skills at a very young age.”

Looking back on 30 years of Topsportschool: do you feel sufficient recognition for the pioneering work you delivered?
“To be honest, I have never really been concerned with that. In 2016 I received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the federation, which of course felt good. But my greatest reward is the friendship I have gained from it. With the coaches, with the host families from back then, with the players. And with the people who are taking over now. Kris Eyckmans, the current technical director Elite Sport, I got to know back then as a journalist. There was immediately a tremendous click. Kris later gave training at the Topsportschool and was incredibly popular with everyone. When Koen Hoeyberghs stopped at Volley Vlaanderen, I knew the succession was in good hands. Kris is the right man in the right place. When I see how the Topsportschool runs today, I am a happy man. We laid the stones back then, they have made a cathedral out of it.”

Text: Kenny Hennens
Photo: Grivok Grimbergen