The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
How Hal Lived His Life
9/14/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The UAB volleyball team will host the second annual Fight Like Hal Memorial Invitational on Sept. 15-17 in memory of long-time assistant coach Hal Messersmith. His credentials are easy to access but they don't show the kind of man Hal really was and how many lives he touched.
In January of 2011, Hal was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic colon cancer and fought a tough fight but lost his battle in July of 2013.
"We host the Fight Like Hal tournament to honor his memory and it gets harder every year. This is the first year that none of our players knew Hal. This past year was the last group that knew him and it certainly makes it difficult," wife and head UAB volleyball coach Kerry Messersmith said. "Hal used to write the girls emails about life so I gathered the girls on Monday and read them a piece of something that he wrote and I will read things that he wrote all week because I feel like it's important for them to know the type of man he was."
Kerry shared a small excerpt of one of the things Hal had written in an email to one of his former players, "He wrote this in the summer of 2012 and I had asked him something along the lines of what he would want people to think about him when he's gone and he wrote, `It's simple, really. My wish is that people closest to me, my family, our team and friends, would say that I was a good coach.'"
The Nebraska native was born in 1959 and had a passion for coaching. He began his career as a football and baseball coach but quickly realized that it was pulling him and his wife in different directions. They both knew things had to change so Hal gave up coaching football and baseball and joined his wife on the volleyball court as her assistant. After a few years as her assistant coach, Hal was offered the head coach for the beach volleyball team that was brought on campus in 2012.
Hal helped UAB volleyball reach new heights and played an instrumental role in the program posting four 20-win seasons and two NCAA Tournament appearances. He also went on to make history when he coached the first-ever sanctioned collegiate beach volleyball match when the Blazers hosted FSU in March of 2012.
When asked about what kind of coach he was Kerry said, "I used to give him a hard time. He would talk to the girls before practice and I'd be in a hurry to get in the gym to start practice. I would tell him that he had fifteen minutes to talk to the girls but forty-five minutes later I would have to poke my head in the locker room and tell him that he's done. It didn't register with me until he was gone how important the things that he said were. The one thing I regret most in my life is never going in and listening."
Hal passed away in July of 2013 but his legacy lives on within Kerry and the UAB volleyball program. "We chose to bring awareness to general cancer with this tournament. Lavender is the color of general cancer and that's the direction we went in and it just kind of caught on. There are several schools that have done it and we want to make an effort to bring awareness to all cancers, not just a specific kind," Kerry said.
The tournament begins Thursday night against UL Lafayette in Bartow Arena at 7 p.m. CST. and UAB will play UT Martin and Memphis on Friday.
For more information on UAB Athletics, visit UABsports.com. Fans can find UAB volleyball on Twitter and Instagram @UAB_VB or on Facebook at facebook.com/UABVolleyball.
