Last year the Hope College volleyball team was the national runner-up and Hope player Addie Vanderweide was named the co-player of the year. Becky started by talking about her coaching philosophy and the team culture. The volleyball team claims the motto "Inspire hope".  They remind themselves that even though there is a good chance of failure it doesn't deter trying.

 

Becky has decided that she will never nominate an individual player for an award because it is against her team philosophy. When the volleyball team started using social media 5 years ago, they decided that what they would emphasize would be fun, connection, and growth. NCAA Division III has always emphasized academics and Becky appreciates that. She will only schedule team activities between 2:30 and 6:00 PM because she wants her players to be able to choose other activities. Players who are choosing between DI and DIII schools will often choose DIII because of the environment. There have also been transfers to Hope of DI players, which leads to the story of this past season. But the story starts the previous year.

7 players graduated and only 1 returning player. This young team made it to the national championships and was defeated by the number one-seeded Juniata. The team talked about meeting standards instead of meeting expectations. Expectations are placed upon you by external entities, while standards are internal. In the off-season, the team learned that 4 Division 1 players were transferring to Hope. What would that mean for the continuing players? 6 months before the season started the team sat down and talked about what this would mean.