Academically Spiking

By Cisco Cole

“I wasn’t nervous, just very excited,” said Rayna Nelsen, the new head coach for the women’s volleyball team at Dana College. Nelsen was announced as the team’s new coach just a couple of weeks ago.

            Shortly after being hired at Dana, Nelsen started running practice. She is sharing her philosophy as well as presenting new strategies to the women of the volleyball program.  

Veteran Dana player Katie Japp feels that Nelson has “brought an exciting new element to Dana,” and that “she’s implementing a lot of new techniques.” In this respect, don’t be surprised to see such training tools as trampolines being used for their practice.

  With this new coach come new strategies and hopefully a new era of positive traditions.  When Nelson was asked about her team priorities, she replied, “I believe a lot of team work as well as communication, that’s important in volleyball.”

            Japp and the other girls on the squad will have a chance to see what it will be like to compete under Nelsen’s leadership as they enter a tournament this weekend. The spring volleyball season will lend the opportunity for the women to bond.

            Nelsen’s hire comes as a breath of relief for the athletic department. “The biggest challenge is to find someone who can coach as well as teach and uphold high academic standards,” said Jim Krueger. Krueger, who is the current director of athletics at Dana College stressed that the hire of Nelsen was a good fit for both coach and professor.

Upon completion of her master’s degree from Wayne State at the end of the semester, Nelsen will teach classes in functional anatomy and kinesiology. Carol Hausserman, Dana’s faculty athletic representative and head chairman of the physical education department, commented that “it’s highly unusual to find coaches that are willing or even able to teach in the sciences.” 

            When asked how important it is to have a coach that is able to fill a teaching role at Dana, Hausserman replied that it was “extremely important to the athletes and institution that our coaches are teachers as well, emphasizing academics.”            Other Dana coaches wear many different hats and have a number of responsibilities on campus as well.

The head women’s soccer coach, Nikola Barjaktarevic, is also an associate professor in the physical education department as well as activities coordinator for the athletic department. Steve Costanzo, Dana’s head men’s wrestling coach, also serves as the associate director of athletics and director of recruiting.

            Nelsen comes from a very competitive volleyball background. This tall slender athlete is a product of Nebraska, growing up in Homer just outside of Sioux City. Nelsen attended Wayne State College where she showed her talent on the courts.

As an athlete she played four years of volleyball and one year of basketball. After completing her undergraduate degree, Nelsen attended graduate school at Wayne State as well. During that time she was able to coach a high school team to two consecutive playoff appearances.

            Nelsen admits that this job will be quite different from coaching high school volleyball. At just 24 years old, Nelsen is at the helm of her first college team. “I could see right off that the girls have a lot of potential,” Nelsen said of the volleyball players already on the Dana roster.  And of Nelsen, Krueger said, “we feel very confident in Coach Nelsen, fortunate and lucky to have this caliber of coach joining the staff.”