For the longest time, Rob Graham tried to get his youngest son interested in volleyball.
The veteran Grandview girls volleyball coach shared the best parts about the game he loved over the years with Jaren, but to no avail.
Things change, however, and they’ve done so in a big way. Jaren Graham got bitten by the volleyball bug five years ago and now, he is the newly-minted Grandview boys volleyball coach, much to his dad’s immense delight.
“I think every dad would love their kid to follow in their passion, and he’s done that,” Rob Graham said. “Now we get to do it together and working together is so much fun.”
Jaren Graham was a multi-sport athlete at Chaparral — including tennis, in which he was a four-year varsity player and the Wolverines’ No. 1 singles player as senior in the 2019-20 season — but none of those sports included volleyball.
The COVID-19 pandemic came around and things changed. During the fall prep season, only two people per team member or coach could attend matches and Rob Graham’s two were always his wife, Jeanne, and Jaren. The Wolves went all the way to the state championship match that season.
“Jaren and my wife came to every match that year (Grandview made it to the state championship match) and out of the blue, he says ‘Dad, I want to learn how to coach volleyball.’ I was surprised, but glad.”
Jaren Graham began attending his father’s private workouts with athletes and began to dive into the game with a passion. He began to study film of the college and international game and never missed a chance to tap into his dad’s knowledge about every nuance of the sport.
“I played volleyball when I was really little, but not after that and there wasn’t as much opportunity when I was high school,” Jaren Graham said. “I wanted to start coaching volleyball, so I just starting asking my dad questions and learning every single day. I’ve got a human (volleyball) library in my house, so he gives me ideas and we go from there.
“This is year five for me now and I’ve pretty much done nothing but volleyball for the last five years.”
Jaren Graham joined his father’s coaching staff with the Grandview girls as an assistant and then joined the boys team as an assistant under original head coach Scott Nugent. He progressed quickly and earned national recognition in 2025 when he was a recipient of the AVCA Thirty Under 30 Club award, which honors rising volleyball coaches, aged 30 or younger, who “show passion and dedication to the sport.”
The 23-year-old’s coaching trajectory continued to rise this offseason, when he was hired to take over the Grandview boys program following Nugent, who guided it to the Class 5A state semifinals last season.
Rob Graham had to a member of his first coaching staff.
“It’s super awesome, we get to bounce ideas off each other and it goes from me being his right hand man on the girls side to him being mine with the boys,” Jaren Graham said.
“What a great opportunity to spend more time with your dad. Who could ask for more than that?”
Besides his budding volleyball knowledge, Jaren Graham has an energy factor that simply can’t be matched. If he’s not standing during every point, he’s out of his chair the instant a play is over with a shot of encouragement.
“He’s the Energizer Bunny out there,” Rob Graham said with a smile. “He loses his voice after every match, but he loves it.”
Expectations come quickly given the team that Jaren Graham takes over.
The Wolves finished a few crucial points away from playing for the state championship last season — they lost in five sets to Eaglecrest, which went to win the state title — and return plenty of key pieces that hope to make that happen this season.
Grandview came into the season in the No. 3 spot in the Colorado High School Activities Association’s 5A preseason rankings behind the two teams that played for last season’s title, Eaglecrest and the Littleton Public Schools co-op.
The Wolves — off to a 4-0 start to the season after a sweep of Rock Canyon March 24 — are built to compete with a core that includes a very experienced setter in senior Devan Hall along with a standout pair of outside hitters in juniors Alex Garcia and Connor Deickman.
The trio play together in club volleyball and enter their third seasons with Grandview, which gives them incredible continuity.
Hall (a UC Merced recruit) is in his third season as the varsity starter and passed the 2,000-assist milestone for his career in the win over Rock Canyon. A good many of those came by making use of weapons like Garcia and Deickman, who were the only teammates in Colorado to have 300 or more kills in the same season.
Garcia — a versatile standout who led 5A in kills last year and is the smartest player in the state in Jaren Graham’s mind — likes the Wolves’ dynamic.
“I think there are a lot more good teams this year, so the margin it takes to be better than one another is a lot smaller,” he said. “We’re going to need more to separate us. I feel like the connection that we have as a team could make us stronger against teams that don’t play so well together.”
Grandview is not the only Aurora area boys volleyball team off to a strong start.
Another outstanding foundation exists at Eaglecrest, which graduated significant talent from last season’s state championship winner, but has not skipped a beat.
Coach Chad Bond’s Raptors got off to an 8-0 start — which included a win in their own tournament — and have only dropped one of the 31 sets they’ve played so far this season.
Senior outside hitter Ashton Bond, versatile junior outside hitter Will George, junior setter Dillan Ancheta and senior libero Max Chen give Eaglecrest a strong foundation.
Overland — which is under the new leadership of Kendall Gregory-McGhee — is also out to an unbeaten start at 6-0 and hasn’t dropped a set after a sweep of Gateway March 24.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports