With a core of sophomore stars and an exciting 2009 recruiting class, the No. 15 Illinois volleyball program appears poised for success the rest of this season and into the future. But they will be doing it without head coach Don Hardin, who announced Monday that he is retiring after 13 years as head coach at Illinois.

Hardin’s announcement did not come as a surprise to those connected with the volleyball program.

“It’s not really a surprise to any of us,” assistant coach Kevin Hambly said. “Internally we’ve known about this for a while. Most of us have had a couple of years to kind of talk about this time, so it’s not really a surprise.”

After 21 years as a head coach, Hardin has decided to take the opportunity to leave the program in a solid position and continue his education with the intention of teaching.

“I love to teach and I really have enjoyed this age of working with people that are young adults that are kind of emerging adulthood and figuring things out about who they are and where they want to go with things,” Hardin said. “I’m hoping that I can stay involved in the education process somehow and contribute to the community and to Illinois the best I can.”

Both the career change and the decision to leave the team in a positive position were intentional.

“This has been part of a plan that I’ve had in place for years now,” Hardin said. “Originally, we were going to look at maybe another year out, but things were looking good enough that I could do it this year, so that’s kind of how we approached it. Things are moving along as we had hoped and maybe even a little better.”

The Illini have been playing all year with the knowledge their head coach may be gone at the end of the season in the back of their minds. And that knowledge has elevated their level of play.

“Part of the reason we’ve been successful this year is a lot of the girls are playing for Don. They want him to go out on a high note, they want him to go as far as he’s ever gone and maybe farther with the team and let him leave with a sense of accomplishment,” Hambly said. “They’ve appreciated everything he’s done to help prepare them for the future. The girls all love Don and they all are going to miss him greatly.

“It’s a hard thing for them to think about right now in the middle of the season,” Hambly added. “At the end of the year, we’ll kind of process that a little bit more, but they’ve all been prepared for it, just like we have as a staff.”

Now a national search is underway to find Hardin’s replacement.

“As almost all normal coaching searches, we’ll have a national search to replace Don.” Assistant Athletics Director Kent Brown said. “I don’t have a particular closing date on that, but I’m sure it will be a two to three week national search as (Illinois Athletic Director) Ron Guenther looks though the top coaches around the country.”

Brown added that promoting a current coach is not outside the realm of possibility. The search could include members of the current coaching staff, a staff Hardin credits with making the Illinois volleyball program a success.

“I feel like I’m leaving this program in excellent condition, poised for immediate success and future success,” Hardin said.

“That really is one of the contingencies that I really had for leaving was making sure that I didn’t leave it on a bad note. Thanks to my incredible staff, that’s really been the case.”