Purdue Fort Wayne men’s volleyball coach Perrotte makes most of U.S. opportunity

By Leigh Quitinsky for VolleyballMag.com

In 1994, a kid from Windsor, Ontario, Canada, crossed the border to watch a volleyball match between the USA and Japan in Detroit. After that, Ryan “Rock” Perrotte decided to visit the campus of what was then called Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, and he knew it was where he wanted to spend the next four years to go to school and play volleyball. 

More than 20 years later, he couldn’t have imagined then that it would lead to a career with what is now Purdue Fort Wayne, where he is the seventh-year head men’s volleyball coach and is making an impact on the court and off. 

Purdue Fort Wayne is currently 6-4 and opens MIVA play Friday when it entertains Lindenwood. In his six-plus seasons as head coach, Perrotte has a record of 72-85, 28-54 in the always tough MIVA. Last spring the Mastodons finished 6-8 in the MIVA, but that included victories over Ohio State and Loyola and a five-set loss to then No. 4 Lewis. 

Growing up, the 6-foot-6-inch Perrotte was also a basketball player. He originally thought he would stay in Canada and go to the University of Windsor to play basketball and volleyball, but decided just playing volleyball would be the best for him. 

“My mother always wanted me to leave home and see the world,” Perrotte said. “By coming to the United States, I had an opportunity to do that and live a dream that I always heard was possible playing Division I volleyball in the United States.” 

“This was never a goal of mine. I would’ve been quite content going to the University of Windsor and playing two sports with basketball and volleyball. But the opportunity to come to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to get a great education and play volleyball at the highest level made me choose Purdue Fort Wayne.”

Purdue Fort Wayne was just a natural fit. It is only two hours away from Windsor, and it had what he wanted academically. Perrotte was a middle blocker for the Mastodons and in his senior year, the team made it to the 1999 national semifinals. 

After graduating in 1999, Perrotte worked on his master’s degree in communications before joining the PFW men’s staff in 2002 as an assistant under the legendary Arnie Ball. He stayed for three seasons, left for Los Angeles for a year, but then came back to Ball’s staff in 2006. He never left and in 2016 was promoted to head coach.

A big reason he came back?

“The university was working towards giving me a green card. It was a win-win for me to be close to my mom and family in Canada and learn under a legendary coach,” Perrotte said. “It gave me the chance to live out my dream as a volleyball coach here in the U.S.” 

And he expanded his reportoire. Originally, Perrotte aspired to be a sports broadcaster. He spent Saturday nights sitting in his father’s lap as a kid watching “Hockey Night In Canada,” which started the passion. He worked some as a TV analyst in Windsor before becoming the PFW analyst for women’s volleyball in 1999, a job he still holds today.

Thanks to volleyball, he has been able to travel the world and learn from some of the greatest in the sport. He has coached for USA Volleyball, which started with a recommendation from Ball. He started with High Performance and continued to move up, evening coaching at the University World Games in Napoli, Italy in 2019. He treats it as if USA Volleyball has adopted him and gave him a chance to have some of the best moments of not only his volleyball career, but his life. 

“This is something that I hold very dear that I’ve been able to represent Team USA and this country at the highest possible level,” Perrotte said. “None of the experiences on TV can prepare you for the personal experience of when you’re living it. It’s such an amazing experience to coach these all-star teams and work with such tremendous coaches.” 

Perrotte said there three important parts of his life, God, his late mother (who died a year ago this week), and everything else. 

“It still feels it was yesterday that this happened,” Perrotte said of his mother. “I continue to live my life, but I feel like a massive portion of me has dissipated with her passing. I’m currently navigating this portion of my life with my professional life.”

In his professional life, Perrotte is able to matter off the court, as well.

At the start of this season, the Mastadons were recognized by a local news outlet for taking the eight-second serving violation to make a statement against social injustice. The team did this in the 2021 season, as well. This is just the first year it was noticed.

As the first black head coach in Division I men’s volleyball, he felt he needed to use his platform to not only speak up about racial injustice, but all social injustices. He was also invited to speak in a webinar with the AVCA to give coaches information about how to talk about race relations with their own student-athletes. 

“I do this, and will continue to do this as long as I am the head coach, to shine a light on social injustice,” Perrotte said. “I want to recognize all of it because, as a society, we have a long way to go.”

Life took him on a very different path than he expected, but he couldn’t be more grateful for everything volleyball has done for him.

“I never thought I was going to be a coach at any time, but the transition into the coaching role has been so rewarding,” Perrotte said. “It is such a special feeling to watch (his players) mature and grow over their collegiate careers and watch them become global citizens. 

“Coaching is all about servanthood, and I am able to do that every day. It is such a rich reward.”

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VBM Staff