The coaching Coveys return by Than Acuff

“MORE TED LASSO, LESS BOBBY KNIGHT” ON THE VOLLEYBALL COURT THIS TIME AROUND.

By Than Acuff

Nolan Blunck

Crested Butte’s school volleyball court this year got a little livelier. After taking a hiatus from coaching the Crested Butte Titans volleyball team, sisters Sheri and Marla Covey are back, with their trademark energy and banter.

“I compare it to the mafia,” said Marla. “Once you get in, you can’t get out.”

Growing up in Nebraska, Sheri and Marla had sports in their lives from the start. With their boundless energy and athletic dad, sports were part passion and part necessity for the two sisters, who are just two years apart in age.

“Our parents had a philosophy of ‘get them out of the house and exhaust them,’ ” said Marla.

Sheri recalls vividly how volleyball took hold of her in eighth grade. “I saw it in the Olympics and thought it was the coolest thing,” she said. “I fell in love with the sport on sight.”

Both Sheri and Marla tout Title 9 as a big part of opening the door to sports for them. When the family moved to Minnesota, Sheri was a junior and Marla a freshman. They followed their passion for athletics through high school and into college, with Sheri focused on volleyball and Marla splitting time between volleyball and softball.

“I was better at softball, but I liked volleyball more,” said Marla.

Sheri spent summers of her college years coaching volleyball at summer camps and after college took a job coaching at South St. Paul High School for two years. When she left to work in a more competitive program, Marla stepped in at South St. Paul.

That template was repeated in Crested Butte. The Crested Butte Community School’s new high school opened in 1997, and Sheri jumped into the volleyball head coaching role in 1998.

“Jason Gould was the coach that first year, and he said to me, ‘I heard you coach’,” recalled Sheri. “I asked him what offenses and defenses he used, and he replied, ‘There’s offense and defense?’ ”

Sheri took the helm with Jason as an assistant, and the program gained strength almost immediately.

“We had girls who had never played volleyball, and three years later we were in regionals battling to get into the state tournament,” Sheri said.

Sheri roped Marla in as a volunteer coach, and after Sheri moved on from the program in 2005, Marla took over and continued coaching until 2015.

“Marla and Sheri were a dynamic duo,” recalled one of their first players, Lauren (Holbrook) Kugler. “When they were coaching, they were yin and yang, bringing out the best in each other. They were focused on earning respect from players by leading by example, being firm with their expectations, and conveying the importance of showing up to do our very best and represent our community well, on and off the court. They were role

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models and instilled a sense of pride in us by creating a healthy team dynamic and culture.”

Amid all of their coaching, building and rebuilding the Titans volleyball program, Marla and Sheri do have careers off the court. High school coaching is about the passion and not the paycheck. Marla has been in the loan industry throughout it all and spends 40-plus hours per week outside of coaching as a loan officer for Benchmark Mortgage.

Sheri pursued a career studying and practicing ortho-bionomy and is now an advanced practitioner and advanced instructor. She started the Rocky Mountain Ortho-Bionomy Center, with schools in Grand Junction and Denver. Remarkably, part of the stated mission of her school, “To help promote the beauty and power of the work of ortho-bionomy and to support students to improve their skills and allow them to reach their visions of their own success,” translates almost verbatim to the Covey sisters’ mission on the court.

After a seven-year break from the school gym, the sisters returned due to popular demand. Sheri had continued coaching club volleyball, and last year they both started helping out with the local Anthracite Volleyball Club. When it became known that the Titans were losing their coach of the past two years, Marla and Sheri started getting phone calls from parents asking them to come back.

“Marla was adamantly no, but I knew it was just a matter of bugging her,” Sheri said. “I talked Marla into helping me; I always do.”

“I was worried the program was going to die,” said Marla. “I put too much time in that gym to see the sport die.”

They admitted things are different this time around.

“This generation has so much anxiety and stress on them. They’re more tuned in and they’re struggling,” said Sheri.

“Also, during Covid, I think they had trouble with team building,” Marla said. “They couldn’t have team dinners or team meetings; they had to play with masks on.”

Sheri and Marla have also adjusted.

“I’ve changed, too,” said Marla. “I try to have more open lines of communication.”

“We’re more flexible than we used to be,” added Sheri. “More Ted Lasso, less Bobby Knight.”

How long will they be back? That depends. The Titans have had four different coaches over the previous six seasons, so the Coveys want to return some consistency to the program to get it back on its feet. Also, with a local volleyball club in place and massive numbers in the middle school volleyball program, the future looks promising. So, they say their tenure comes down to their own health and the parents of the players.

“The parents now are just so incredibly willing to pitch in and help us,” said Marla. “We’ll probably go until our joints give out, or our brains.”

Ultimately, though, it’s about the kids. “You see such a range of emotions, and their emotional highs and lows add to your life,” said Marla.

“There’s something really challenging and something really inspiring working with these kids,” said Sheri. “They’re on their journeys and it’s cool to be a part of that. The girls have added a whole new layer of inspiration for me. I’ve always loved coaching and it’s nice to know I still love it. I’m gratefully inspired by these kids.” b

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