Jonathan Alder volleyball coach Kim Hayes checks over the lineup prior to a 2017 match. Hayes, who took over the program last fall on an interim basis, has been named the full-time coach.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Tim Miller)
––––
Although the Jonathan Alder High School volleyball program has had a great deal of success over the past decade, there has been a lack of coaching continuity.
Kim Hayes wants to correct that situation.
“They’ve gone through nine coaches in the last 10 years,” said Hayes, who was recently named to the position on a full-time basis by the district’s board of education.
Hayes, who was an All-Ohio spiker at Fairbanks High School as Kim Headings, was named JA’s interim head coach last August when Matt Craycraft abruptly resigned after a couple games of into his first season at the helm.
Hayes, who previously served as Alder’s volleyball coach for one season in the 1990s, had been a volunteer assistant coach on Craycraft’s staff.
She was elevated to the top position following Craycraft’s resignation and guided Alder to the Central Buckeye Conference’s Kenton Trail Division championship.
“The coaches Jonathan Alder has had have been great,” said Hayes. “T.J. Reid (who coached the team in 2016) is now an assistant coach at North Carolina State. Taryn Hass (who guided JA to the 2015 Division II state runner-up finish) has started a family.
“I think a lot of the coaches Jonathan Alder has had have been people who have been in transition,” she said. “I’m established in the community and I want to build continuity in the program.”
Hayes said all of the coaching changes have been difficult for Alder’s athletes.
“The girls go in not knowing the expectations (from a coach),” she said. “It’s hard on them when everything changes year-to-year.”
Hayes won’t be able to work with any of her players in the off-season due to the fact that most play club volleyball. That season runs until June.
“We may have a few open gyms and conditioning sessions in July (before the preseason begins),” she said.
Hayes said she is happy that so many Alder girls in grades 7-12 are playing club volleyball.
“That’s where they will develop and polish their skills,” she said. “They have a much longer season than high school volleyball and we just don’t have time during the season to work on fundamentals.
“Our focus this coming season will be developing team chemistry,” said Hayes.
“We will also have the goals of repeating as conference champions and advancing farther in the Division II tournament.”