UI volleyball players try their hand at coaching
Monday, August 17, 2015
Written by: Emily McCurdy

For University of Iowa volleyball junior Alyssa Klostermann, it’s all about passing the torch.

“I enjoy being able to teach others what I have loved my whole entire life,” says Klostermann.  

Although it may be the offseason for many sports, a lot is going on in the University of Iowa’s Department of Athletics this summer. For the past few months, Klostermann, along with her teammates, helped coach K-12 girls at camps hosted at the university. From beginners learning the "FUNdamentals" to older campers improving their skills, the Hawkeyes stood alongside their coaches to teach skills they themselves have learned to master.

“The camps provide a really awesome chance for those kids in our community and their families to get direct interaction with our players and with our staff,” says second-year head coach Bond Shymansky. “What’s so fun with kids is that you watch them go from kind of crawling to walking to running to flying all in the span of one week. They’ll learn how to do a volleyball skill that they’ve never ever done before, and that’s pretty rewarding.” 

The camps not only provide a learning experience for campers, but they also present student-athletes with new challenges as they learn what it is like to coach.

"I always tease our players when they have the chance to coach," says Shymansky. "Sometimes they’ll say things like, ‘Gosh, I was trying to get little Suzie to do this and she just wouldn’t do it or couldn’t do it. I don’t know how to get through to her,’ and I’ll just kind of chuckle and say 'Welcome to coaching.'"

Despite the struggles that student-athletes face with coaching, these moments make improvement all the more gratifying.

"If a girl listens to you and changes her platform or her technique and they see a result and you see the result, you start to understand why it’s so rewarding when your coaches see you getting better every day," freshman Molly Kelly says.

This summer the Iowa volleyball team hosted 13 sections of camps, providing many campers the chance to play in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Perhaps some of them will one day grace the hall of the arena again, not as campers but as University of Iowa student-athletes.

Although this year’s camps have come to an end, they are offered every summer, along with camps for football, soccer, basketball, and more.

To see what’s new with Hawkeye Volleyball, follow the team: