Henk Blok

Henk Blok (born 4 January 1922) is a former Dutch volleyball coach.

Blok was for almost 40 years coach of the men’s and later women’s national volleybal team.

Celebes

In 1946 he graduated from the Sport Academy in The Hague and started working there as a teacher. He was trainer in athletics, basketball and volleyball. The volleyball group got the name “Celebes”, after the street name were two of his pupils lived. In 1940 the volleyball club was founded under that name. In this team were among others Cees van Zweeden [nl], Jan van Zweeden, Rinus van Zweeden and Henny de Ruijter.

The men’s teams were unbeaten, but at the time there was not a national competition. After the Dutch national volleyball federation, Nederlandse Volleybalbond, was founded in 1948 the women’s team started winning prizes. The team became in the second year (1949) national champion. The women’s became again national champion in 1955, 1956, 1958 and 1959. The team also played internationally, including to Moscow in 1962 during the Cold War. In later year, when Blok still had an assisting role, the team became national champion in 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969 and 1972 (the later two under new club name Haag ’68).

Netherlands women's national volleyball team

Blok was head coach for almost 15 years of the Netherlands women's national volleyball team until between 1949 and 1963.

Netherlands men's national volleyball team

After being coach of the women’s, Blok became in 1963 head coach of the Netherlands men's national volleyball team and stopped coaching the women’s national team. The national team became West-European Champion in Brussels. With this result the team also qualified for the 1964 Summer Olympics where volleyball was played for the first time. Blok pointed out that volleyball was not professional enough to come to world class achievements.

After a disappoint 1967 European championships he stopped as head coach in 1968.

In 1970 he received a medal of honor from the Dutch volleyball federation.

Blok was born on 4 January 1922 in Statenkwartier, The Hague, as the second of four children. His father was teacher and his women house wife. When he was young he did fencing and boxing. During World War II he has to leave his home as the Germans occupied the area.With having a Student card he didn’t had to move to Germany. Near the end of the war he moved to Sleeuwijk with an illegal document, with false SS stamps. He helps distributing food from Biesbosch farmer to Gorinchem. After the war he moved back to The Hague, where he graduated in 1946 and became teacher. In 1958 he married to Annet, a student he met when he was teacher at the Sports Academy. They had three children (son Michiel, and dochters Marlie and Dorien) and eight grand children. He retired in 1987. In November 2021, at the age of 99, he gave his last interview.

Newspaper articles about Blok — via Delpher