Karl Seiler, head coach of sand and women’s volleyball, is a product of Palomar College, starting his career as a student athlete in 1988 and going on to clench five Pacific Coast Conference Coach of the Year awards during his coaching career at Palomar.
He said he accepts the awards in honor of the team.
“If the team does well I say they did great, if the team does bad then I say I coached badly,” Seiler said.
His selfless personality transcends beyond the court and into the lives of his students and athletes, they say.
Rachel McFarland, a student-athlete at Palomar, said that Karl always makes himself available to help.
“He cares about what you’re doing on the court and also off the court,” McFarland said. “He tries to find a way to make us better. He’s there for you.”
These attributes haven’t gone unnoticed by his fellow colleagues. J.G. Aegerter, a football defensive line coach, has known Seiler for 20 years and said that Seiler’s experiences in community college and within the sport are benefits for Seiler’s student athletes.
“He understands the importance of junior college and especially in athletics and how it helps kids move on to the next level,” Aegerter said.
Seiler graduated from Torrey Pines High School in 1983 where
he went on to play soccer at MiraCosta College. He found his way to Palomar a year later and began his volleyball career at the height of the men’s national volleyball team in the 1984 and 1988 Olympic games.
“Everywhere I turned, volleyball was there,” Seiler said. He had played basketball and baseball along with soccer and said the blend of those skills needed to play volleyball is what drew him to try it.
During his college years, Seiler said he tackled several different majors, attempting to steer clear of a teaching route that his parents took as community college professors themselves.
Seiler said he followed the direction of his friends and let other people make decisions for him because he felt they had better ideas. He eventually realized whom he was and what he wanted to do. He earned his master’s degree from Azusa Pacific University.
“Act on what you believe and what you want to go after, and then problem solve it. If it doesn’t work then you find a different route,” Seiler said. “Keep going forward and don’t look back unless to see how you can change things for the future, but don’t sit back there.”
His advice stays true to who he is as a coach as well. Hanna Seits, a student athlete at Palomar, said, “he can always turn a situation into a positive. He’s always looks at the bright side of things.”
Seits added that his fatherly demeanor is what makes him so likable and approachable. “He’s definitely a father figure to us and very caring.”
Seiler described himself as a person whose job is to support people and to try to help them be better at what they’re trying to do by giving them the experiences he’s garnered throughout the years.
“You always want your kids to be better than you,” Seiler said. “It’s kind of like on my teams, once you’re on my team you’re basically my daughter and I want you to be better than me.”
Transitioning from an athlete to a coach was one of the toughest moments for Seiler early on in his coaching career. “The first game that we had was the hardest one for me because I felt like I was walking in to play, not walking into coach, because I still had that passion to play,” Seiler said.
Realizing that he could help people improve their game, Seiler’s focus changed and solidified his path on to a coaching career at Palomar. Seiler ultimately followed within his parent’s footsteps and made an impact with the people he’s met here at Palomar.
“He’s very passionate and serious when it comes to volleyball and he takes everything very seriously but light heartedly at the same time,” Seits added. “He has that right balance of seriousness and goofiness where he can goof around and have fun but he definitely knows how to click into coach mode to make sure we’re all focused.”
