STARKVILLE — Starkville Academy shared some big news on Monday, officially beginning a Vols volleyball program at the school. Volleyball, which will be offered at both the junior high and high school level, becomes the 12th girls’ sport SA offers.
The first volleyball head coach was announced on Monday as well, with Allison Woolbright coming over from New Hope to take charge. Woolbright recently retired from New Hope after 27 years of teaching in public schools and 10 years of coaching.
“Obviously we’re thrilled to hire someone with the experience and winning nature that Allison brings, but we remained patient through the process because we wanted the absolute best fit for Starkville Academy,” athletic director Greg Owen told The Dispatch. “It was a long process of evaluating a lot of people, but when we had the chance to hire coach Woolbright we were ready to move on that pretty quick.”
Owen hopes to rely on a handful of girls who have played previously for club or travel teams, but he thinks the school can do its part in continuing the growth of the sport in the area.
“About two or three have played any kind of club or travel volleyball,” he said. “We think that’ll grow going forward because I would expect it to be around 35-40 girls in our program. We want to have a varsity, junior varsity, and junior high team.”
The school wanted to get a head start on the program once the interest was there and held a clinic for interested students to learn some basic skills. Owen said about 35 girls participated in the clinic, which was led by William Carey University head coach Kelsea Weldon. Weldon played volleyball for Southern Miss before coaching for Oak Grove High School in Hattiesburg, winning four district titles.
“She was able to come in and get the girls going in the right direction and give us a jump start,” Owen said. “We brought our girls into a clinic where we really got to teach and hone in on the fundamentals of volleyball. Before we even had a coach we knew we wanted our girls to be as advanced as possible.”
Woolbright’s experience in helping a program find its feet will come in handy for the Vols team with so many players new to the game. She helped get the Trojans program started as an assistant before she became head coach. She was the ideal candidate for Owen, and he expressed his high hopes for the young program in her hands.
“We are always looking for opportunities to add for our student-athletes, and especially our female athletes. There was a lot of desire about a year ago in playing volleyball and we kept finding a growing interest, so we moved forward with it in our new building. We’ve got a new gym that will be the home of our volleyball team, and we knew it was time to start and with Coach Woolbright available it was a no-brainer to move forward with it.”
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