AJ Horin just wanted to get out of the house.
It was the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and he was living in the Seattle suburbs.
“I had to find something to do because I was stuck in the house with nothing to do all day,” AJ Horin said. “I found volleyball, and the community was just amazing out there.”
That community kept him in Washington for six years. But AJ Horin’s growing passion for volleyball prompted a move back to Munster so he could play for his sister Madison, who is the boys volleyball coach. Madison Horin, a 2019 Munster graduate, played volleyball at USC.
AJ Horin, a 6-foot-5 sophomore middle blocker, started every match at middle blocker for the Mustangs (13-12), whose season ended with a 25-19, 29-27, 25-22 loss against Lake Central on Saturday.
But next season will have a different ending for AJ Horin and teams across the state following the Indiana High School Athletic Association’s April 29 announcement that boys volleyball — as well as girls wrestling — will receive full recognition for the 2024-25 school year. Sanctioned postseason tournaments will be established for both sports.
AJ Horin said he hopes that will boost interest in Munster’s program.
“There are so many people we talk to who don’t even know that we have a boys volleyball team,” he said. “Now that it’s a recognized sport, maybe we’ll get more people from the school.”
AJ Horin is happy to be a volleyball recruiter these days, but his early experiences in the sport weren’t so positive.
“I originally hated volleyball,” he said with a laugh. “Two of my older sisters played volleyball, so that meant so many hours of waiting at tournaments.”
But once AJ Horin used volleyball to escape the doldrums of the pandemic, his opinion of the sport made a “complete 180,” as he described it. But there was no volleyball team at his high school in Washington, and the club scene didn’t offer enough tournaments to satisfy him.
That’s when he learned that Madison Horin, who also played with USA Volleyball’s youth and junior national teams during her career, was going to be the boys volleyball coach at Munster.
“I was like, ‘Wow, I might want to try and move,’” AJ Horin said.
Munster’s Madison Horin (21) celebrates a point against Penn during a Class 4A LaPorte Regional semifinal on Saturday, Oct. 20, 2018. (Suzanne Tennant / Post-Tribune)
Madison Horin said she was initially thrilled to hear he would play on her team, although she did have some reservations about coaching her sibling.
“We have a good sibling relationship, and we goof around at home, but we had to figure out a way of making it work in the gym,” she said. “We had a conversation about it. I was very excited, but I was also aware of the fact that there could be trouble.”
Munster assistant Kalin Miller said the Horin siblings found a way to make it all work.
“It was very new to both of them at first,” Miller said. “You could tell that they’re very close, and he’d want to call her ‘Maddie’ but had to call her ‘coach.’ But once the season started, you couldn’t even tell. There was a great balance.”
As the season continued, Madison Horin said she noticed plenty of similarities between her and AJ.
“The competitiveness runs in the Horin blood,” she said with a laugh. “He’s very similar to me in that aspect. It was cool to see that up close and just see how much of an athlete he’s become — not only as his sister, but as someone who loves the game.”
AJ Horin shares that love of the game, and his summer plans include learning how to drive so he can get his license and make more frequent trips to the gym in preparation for next season. He is also eyeing a position change. He wants to become an outside hitter because he believes he could have a greater impact on matches.
“In the middle, it’s harder to control flow because you’re not the one setting and you’re not always guaranteed a block,” AJ Horin said. “I want to move up to that stage, from being someone who’s used when we’re playing in a good game to being someone who can make it into a good game.”
Dave Melton is a freelance reporter.
