For some, the family business might be law or medicine or plumbing or music. But for Cazenovia’s Bryan Bobo, it’s volleyball.

Bobo, who will lead his Wildcat women’s squad into North Eastern Athletic Conference postseason tournament play this weekend, hails from Oneida, New York, just 26 miles east of Syracuse, where he also directs the boys’ varsity squad at the high school there. His mother, Cynthia, is the head girls’ varsity coach at Oneida, while his father, Scott, serves as the junior varsity and varsity scorekeeper for all home matches.

Meanwhile, Bobo’s twin sisters, Aubrey and Brianne, play at Siena, where Aubrey was a second-team all-Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference selection.

“When we’re all in season, when we’re together, that’s all we talk about – volleyball,” said Bobo.

Though he is now on the verge of wrapping up his first year at Cazenovia and has aspirations of one day leading a Division I program, Bobo didn’t initially intend to enter the volleyball coaching ranks. After graduating from Lasell, he planned on becoming an athletic trainer. At that time, he also took on coaching responsibilities for a club team in Syracuse and discovered volleyball was his true passion.

“I had a coach from high school and I really looked up to him. I saw how kids respect him as a coach and I liked that. He was really an inspiration to me,” he said. “That and loving the game and wanting to always be around it, I really decided coaching was what I wanted to do.”

Although volleyball had something of an advantage, it wasn’t necessarily a given that it would be Bobo’s sport of choice. He was a standout member of Lasell’s men’s volleyball team. His mother played in high school and college and has been a longtime coach in the sport. Further, Bobo’s parents met via vbolleyball – his mother and aunt were college teammates and his father would come watch his sister’s matches.

However, Bobo and his sisters were all three-sport athletes growing up – for him it was volleyball along with tennis and soccer. There was never any pressure to play or coach volleyball, he said, and his parents supported whatever he and his siblings decided to pursue. “I guess it just runs in our veins. Our whole lives that’s what we’ve been around. We learned to love it,” he said.

Not surprisingly, family ties have done nothing to diminish their competitiveness against each other. Bobo said he and his sisters figure out ways to go head-to-head.

“We’ll have open gym at the high school in the summer and my sisters and I make sure we’re on different teams so we can try to beat up on each other,” he said.

Bobo has some experience coming out on top – he still holds multiple career and single-match records at Lasell – and is working to inspire that same success at Cazenovia. In his first season, he guided the team to a modest seven wins; however, it was the program’s highest win total since 2002, when the Wildcats scratched out eight victories.

Not only is the future bright for Bobo’s Cazenovia squad, but the coach believes the entire sport is on the upswing. He attributes part of volleyball’s growth to the increased television exposure of sand volleyball, which has also translated into more TV time for the indoor game. Rules changes have played a role, too.

“I think back to when I was in high school, when you’d never see volleyball on television unless it was the Olympics,” he said. “I hope volleyball stays popular and gets more popular, especially with adding sand volleyball at the college level. I think that’s great, getting more kids involved in different ways.”