BUTLER TWP — Rob Snyder tosses volleyball after volleyball above the net. One current player after another takes her turn practicing footwork and timing in executing hit after hit.

Nearby this Aug. 18 evening are former players, some BC3 volleyball legends. Those who have helped Snyder to win game after game are themselves practicing for Butler County Community College’s annual preseason volleyball scrimmage that pits alumni against current players.

There are Missy Schnur, Dani Beatty and Brittney Bianco, All-Americans facing BC3’s current players and a Field House wall bedecked with pennants commemorating their state, national regional or conference championship victories.

They – Schnur, Beatty, Bianco – have helped to give Snyder 395 career wins. The current players practicing footwork and timing in executing hit after hit – Morgan Frishkorn, Breanna Reisinger, Josie Rupp, others – this fall will help to give Snyder his 400th.

“I didn’t win any games,” Snyder said. “I appreciate the people whom we have had here and they are the ones who have won every one of these games.”

His teams are 395-153 through his 21 seasons.

The Pioneers begin their pursuit of five victories needed to reach the milestone for Snyder when they open a 13-game regular season at 6 p.m. Wednesday, hosting Penn State-Greater Allegheny.

“It will be special,” Frishkorn said of win No. 400 for Snyder, “because it is something that my team accomplished for him.”

“Awesome” is how the Pioneers will feel,” Reisinger said.

“He deserves it,” Rupp said. “He loves to win. For us to do that for him will be great. I will love to see the big smile on his face. It would make him feel so good.”

Snyder did not feel so good when he began to coach BC3’s volleyball team – his interest was with the college’s basketball programs. He accepted the position to augment his income as a 26-year-old part-time Field House supervisor and intramural program director at the college in 1996.

He’d played volleyball years earlier, at Midlakes High School in upstate New York, mostly to condition for basketball season.

The Pioneers won only four games in his first season and lost eight.

They won only four games in his second season and lost 11.

“It wasn’t the love of my life right away,” Snyder said. “I thought, ‘I don’t want to go out losing. I don’t want to do this and be bad at it. As soon as we have a good season, I’ll probably move on to something different.’”

That good season came in 1998.

The Pioneers won 15 games in his third season – including the program’s first conference title under Snyder and its first state championship – and lost only four.

“And I was hooked,” Snyder said. “And the next year I wanted to come back and win it all again. And that’s how it just kind of spiraled.”

What has followed have been 17 more winning seasons, four more Pennsylvania Collegiate Athletic Association state championships, 10 National Junior College Athletic Association Division III Region XX crowns and 10 more Western Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference titles.

And six Top 10 rankings – including a season-ending No. 5 in 2002.

Players drawn to BC3’s program include at least 28 high schools across Allegheny, Armstrong, Butler, Clarion, Crawford, Erie, Indiana, Lawrence, Mercer and Venango counties under Snyder’s tenure.

His heart and soul, Schnur said.

“And sweat and tears,” said Schnur, a graduate of Laurel High in Lawrence County. “It’s pretty much his life, the volleyball program. And making it successful.”

Making it successful, said Beatty, a graduate of Butler, means Snyder comes early to the Field House for practice and stays late.

“If we were working on a drill, and I just wasn’t getting what he was asking, I would say, ‘Hey Rob. After practice, can you hit 20 balls at me and let me pass and break down what I am doing wrong?’ And he would stay after,” Beatty said. “And we would talk about lineups. Or who we were playing.”

“I will be super, super proud of him (winning 400),” said Bianco, a Freeport graduate.