Riverview High School opened its 2026 girls volleyball season with a 3-0 loss to Venice on Tuesday, Aug. 25, but head coach Jason Mocherman measures success differently.
Mocherman is also a science teacher and director of what the school calls the largest public school planetarium in Florida. He took over the Rams' volleyball program in 2023, adding head coach to a resume that already included 22 years running the planetarium. The season-opening result was reported by the Herald-Tribune.
Win or lose, Mocherman told Your Observer he sees teaching and coaching as the same job.
"I'd rather lose a match here or there and teach somebody a really important lesson about responsibility … than win at all costs," he said.
He has benched players whose grades slipped, even in matches where those players could have made a winning difference. Athletic director Matt Borriello said Mocherman makes clear that every girl in the program matters, whether she plays on the freshman, JV or varsity team.
A planetarium saved
Mocherman followed his father, Michael Mocherman, into the planetarium director role in 2001. Eight years later, when Riverview's old building was torn down, the district's superintendent tried to cut costs by leaving the planetarium out of the new construction. No other school in the district had one.
Mocherman and the RHS Foundation struck a deal with the school board: raise half of the $1.2 million cost, and the board would fund the rest. The campaign took two and a half years.
Mocherman said the school board president at the time admitted the only reason they made the deal was because they never thought the community would pull it off. They raised the $600,000 and presented the check at a school board meeting. The board matched it.
The planetarium seats roughly 100 beneath its projection dome. Mocherman's desk sits inside. He teaches every class there, reviews game film there, and handles coaching paperwork there.
Same mission, different court
Each fall, Mocherman tells his honors astronomy students they will never need to know how far away the Sun is. The real goal, he says, is becoming better critical thinkers. He applies the same logic to volleyball.
His brother, Josh Mocherman, teaches chemistry and nuclear radiation down the hall at Riverview, keeping the family's presence on campus into a second generation.
Student-athletes who know Mocherman as both teacher and coach use the planetarium as a gathering place. They knock on his door to share good news or to sit with someone on a hard day.
