Van Oort wants J-Hawks to enjoy competing
First-year Jefferson volleyball coach Mary Kay Van Oort knows what it’s like to be a star and what it’s like to be the kid who barely made the cut, and she wants to make sure both kinds of girls feel at home on her team.
“I really care about everybody in the gym,” she says. “The star player is no more important than the 12th player on the team. They all contribute to what we’re doing. I worry about everybody’s experience.”
She also wants to make sure a team that struggled through a 4-32 season last year knows the heady, confidence-building feeling of getting a key win. A sweep of Dubuque Senior in the team’s first outing this past Tuesday — including a come-from-behind triumph after a deep deficit in the third game — set a nice stage for accomplishing both goals.
It was an early boost for the team and for Van Oort, an accomplished former volleyball player and coach who is returning to the head coaching role after a lengthy hiatus during which she turned her attention to family and career.
