How to treat people, stay focused, strive for a common goal, communicate effectively, rebound after a loss, become a productive citizen, give back, multi-task and manage your time.

Those are a few of the lessons you can learn from playing volleyball, according to Teresa Kehe, who is beginning her first year as Linn-Mar’s head volleyball coach.

A member of the Iowa Girls Coaches Association Hall of Fame who has already achieved major success at both the high school and college levels, Kehe is returning to the prep ranks this fall to do the thing she loves best: Teach.

“We’re not about wins and losses,” she says. “We’re about development of the individual as well as the team, preparing them for future life.”

The chance to rebuild a Linn-Mar program that fell to the conference cellar last year is a homecoming of sorts for Kehe, who grew up in Cedar Rapids — as Teresa Langguth — and played on the inaugural Jefferson High School volleyball team from 1974 to 1977.

That was when girls’ athletics were just beginning their meteoric rise after the passage of Title IX, she recalls.

Kehe, who loved sports from an early age, grew up in a neighborhood where all the kids shot baskets and played ball, she remembers. At Jefferson, she played basketball, softball and tennis as well as volleyball.

After high school, she headed to the University of Northern Iowa to major in physical education. That was before recruiting was common, but she saw a sign for volleyball tryouts, showed up and made the team. She played all four years, the last three as a starter. She also benefited from the introduction of partial scholarships for volleyball players during her sophomore year.

“I loved kids and being physically active,” she says, so there was no question where her career would take her. She graduated in 1981 and was hired as a PE teacher for the Tripoli, Iowa, school system. In addition to teaching students from kindergarten through seventh grade, she coached junior high track and basketball. There was no volleyball program — only the administration’s promise to consider adding it in the future.

By 1983, that promise had been fulfilled, and she began a 23-year coaching run during which Tripoli High School vaulted to prominence as one of the most successful programs in the state, pounding out six state titles and two runnerup finishes over an eight-year stretch. She led the team to an overall record of 579-140-37 and was twice a finalist for National Coach of the Year.

Kehe says her best memories of those years are “the kids and the relationships.” What mattered, she stresses, was, “Did it help us learn and grow as people? What life lessons can we learn from our experiences?”

She was learning life lessons as well, raising two sons, now ages 27 and 29.

In the fall of 2006, Kehe accepted an offer to coach the Loras College volleyball team. “I was ready for a new challenge,” she says. During her seven-year tenure, the Duhawks won two conference titles and made their first appearance in the NCAA Tournament. She was named Conference Coach of the Year in 2008.

"I had a great time there,” she says. “But I wasn’t teaching.” So when Linn-Mar contacted her about its coaching position after coach Rob Justis vacated the position last fall, she agreed to think about it — remembering another of her life lessons.

“I’ve always taught my kids to keep their options open and explore every opportunity,” she says.

Linn-Mar assistants Erin Dowling and Jenny Lucas took over as co-coaches and led the team to a 15-21 season last year, but Kehe was on the hook and eventually interviewed for the position.

In the end, she says, “I saw it as a way to help a program get off the ground again, but I told the kids that what I’ve been able to accomplish elsewhere has nothing to do with here. It still takes talent and hard work. They’ll have to make it happen.”

Kehe says the Lions are coalescing around team leaders, including seniors Kiley Coppock and Andrea Schminke and junior Sarah Renner.

“They were searching. They didn’t have that mental part of what they need. But they’re learning it.”

Over her 30-year career, Kehe has seen the level of play climb steadily among the girls and women she has coached, she says. “The games are faster, the kids are stronger and more athletic, the volleyball IQ is much higher. There’s a lot more year-round play with kids focusing on one sport.”

Despite the positives that come with that commitment, she continually reminds her players that “academics come first, and we are just enhancing that academic experience. I’m a teacher first.”

Which brings her back to life lessons.

“We do a lot of team-building and personal development, and I have the kids keep a journal,” she says. “It makes them reflect, and whatever you do in life, that’s a good practice. It makes them think about strengths and weaknesses, where they need to improve. I try to make everything thought-provoking.”

Kehe, whose father still lives in Cedar Rapids, is engaged to an old college friend who is also a Cedar Rapids native, so the Linn-Mar assignment is a return to her roots in several respects. And she’s back in the classroom, teaching PE to students in all four grades.

Although she made the most of her college coaching experience, she says, “I’ve always enjoyed this level. I think you can have more of an impact.”

For Kehe, that means challenging her players to make their own impact.

“It’s a process — learning to compete, and asking, ‘What can you do to raise the bar? What is your contribution? You can’t choose how tall you are, but you can choose whether you’ll call that ball.

"Life’s full of choices. What are you choosing?’”