By Travis Sloat
Sara Walkup just eclipsed 400 wins with her volleyball players at Cheney High School, but the first thing she said was that she didn’t want the article written about her, just the great volleyball program she’s a part of.
“I’d like you to write about the great program at Cheney,” Walkup said. “Not about me or my number of wins. The girls are the ones who do all the work.”
As a three-sport athlete from Caldwell, Walkup said she didn’t want to not be a part of volleyball anymore, so coaching came naturally.
“I went into coaching to spread my love of the game to other young girls like myself,” she said. “I love being from a small town, and I think that’s why I love the school here at Cheney so much. All these girls are three sport athletes like I was, just trying to be the best they can be at all of them.”
As much as it pains her to talk about the road to 400 wins, Walkup insisted that someone, somewhere, had counted wrong.
“I tried to tell everyone making a big deal out of it that they were wrong, and that surely it couldn’t be 400 yet,” she said. “It’s honestly just a testament to the girls I have coached over the last 13 years. They have all had an impact on the program, and the future of volleyball here in Cheney. One of the neatest things is seeing girls who watched us compete at state as little kids become the next volleyball star at Cheney and watching them grow into great humans as well as volleyball players.”
Walkup said her advice to coaches trying to get to 400 is simple: don’t focus on getting to 400.
“My biggest goal as a coach is to inspire the girls to be the best they can be while learning the game of volleyball, and also having fun at the same time,” she said. “We always have lots of team bonding so the girls can really have a good time together, laugh, and make memories. But they all know that when it comes to practice and games, they better hustle and get after it, or they will be running. I think showing them a personal side to you as the coach and developing a relationship with the team makes them respect you as a coach and makes them internally motivated to win. It’s not just because of what you say and do.”
