The Formula for a National Championship : Sports: Coach Brian Gimmillaro’s three-step approach prepels Long Beach State to the title in women’s volleyball.

For Brian Gimmillaro, coach of the Long Beach State women’s volleyball team, this is how you win a national championship:

* Take only two days off between the beginning of August and the middle of December, spending countless hours drawing up game strategy and creating new drills.

* Get the best out of the players you have.

* Stress defense, defense, defense--even though your team is one of the more powerful offensive teams ever to roam the court.

Gimmillaro’s formula was proven Saturday, when Long Beach defeated Penn State, 15-13, 12-15, 15-11, 16-14, in the NCAA final at the University of Wisconsin Field House.

It was Gimmillaro’s second national championship in nine years as Long Beach coach. He won his first title in 1989.

From Aug. 1 until the moment 49er Danielle Scott blocked the final ball to win the national title, Gimmillaro worked on volleyball every day except for Thanksgiving and one Sunday.

When he wasn’t talking to a recruit or watching film, he was mapping out game strategies and practice plans.

“I’m not incredibly organized, but I am a good planner, and I believe that I have a vision of what I want to do,” Gimmillaro said. “All my time is spent thinking about how I’m going to get this thought and this idea to the players.”

This type of preparation also helped Gimmillaro lead Cerritos Gahr to four CIF Southern Section championships (in 1978, 1979, 1983 and 1984) and also to the 1983-1984 CIF State Division I Championship.

Gimmillaro made few changes in his style in the transition from the high school to the college ranks. He still considers himself more of a teaching coach than a recruiting coach. Recruiting, he said, is detrimental to the collegiate sport.

“I think we spend too much time recruiting and not enough time teaching,” Gimmillaro said. “I take great pride in teaching the athletes that I have.”

It is clear that Gimmillaro teaches well. Take, for instance, Joy McKienzie.

Gimmillaro asked McKienzie, a senior, to play setter this season after having been a starting back row specialist for the past three years. Not only did McKienzie learn the position well enough to lead Long Beach to the NCAA title, she also was selected a second team all-American.

Gimmillaro smiles when speaking of McKienzie.

“I really get the greatest satisfaction in seeing the difference in a player when they come in and when they go out,” Gimmillaro said.

One thing a Long Beach player is sure to learn while playing for Gimmillaro is defense.

“I take most pride in our defense,” Gimmillaro said. “I like defensive movement, not just desire or aggressiveness. It takes the longest to be a great defensive player.”

But anyone who has ever seen Long Beach play knows it is the epitome of a power team. After the regular season, Long Beach led the nation in hitting percentage, .335. What’s more, Scott hit .438 and Nichelle Burton hit .372 to rank first and second, respectively, in the Big West Conference.

Many coaches would have built their team around the strengths of these two powerful players rather than trying to turn them into well-rounded players.

Not Gimmillaro. Burton, a junior outside hitter, led the team in digs with 319 this season.

“(Scott and Burton) are as good as anybody, ever, in the front court and when they play defense like that, then you have a great volleyball player,” Gimmillaro said.

It is this coaching philosophy that has led Long Beach to the best record of any NCAA Division I team in the past three years.

Long Beach, which finished 32-2 this season, is 98-7 (.933 winning percentage) over the past three years, slightly better than UCLA, which finished 30-2 this season, 94-8 (.922 winning percentage) during the past three years. The Bruins also have won one national championship (in 1991) during that time.

It pleases Gimmillaro that the volleyball community has recognized his dominating, three-year record. But, characteristically, Gimmillaro said his higher goal was always much simpler.

“I am happy that people are aware of that (three-year record),” Gimmillaro said. “But, it wasn’t a goal. The goal was to play good volleyball.”

Oh yeah, that’s how you win a national championship.

*

What do you do if you’ve spent nearly every day of the past four months working on volleyball and you just won the national championship?

You celebrate, of course.

So, after winning the NCAA title Saturday, Gimmillaro very matter-of-factly announced that his team would go out and experience all the fun that Madison, Wis., had to offer.

“I tell these people, ‘There is a time to work and there is a time to play,’ ” Gimmillaro said in a post-match press conference, “and we’re going to play.”

How much fun did they have?

Said Gimmillaro: “It was really a celebration.”