New volleyball coach looks ahead to first season at GC

After an anticipated wait, the Georgia College Department of Athletics is proud to introduce volleyball as one of the 13 sports the university now offers.

Leading the excitement is new volleyball head coach Gretchen Krumdieck.

“I’m really excited, and I think it’s a really good time to start this sport on campus,” Krumdieck said. “I’ve been talking to a lot of recruits and showing them that Georgia College is a great school to play at.”

Growing up in Cincinnati, Krumdieck played many different sports, particularly softball, but it was her determination to set herself apart from her baseball-playing brother that led her to volleyball at 9 years old. It turned out she loved it.

“Volleyball is a really fast-paced game, and it’s the only sport that could really hold my attention,” Krumdieck said. “And I just wanted to separate myself from my brother and do my own thing.”

She went on to play at an all-girls Catholic high school, Saint Ursula Academy, where she and her teammates went on to achieve victory as state champions. After graduating, Krumdieck continued her career at Wheeling Jesuit University, where she claims she was lucky enough to enter the volleyball program there during a time of rebuilding.

“I really got into the volleyball program at just the right time, where they were moving things around and trying new things,” Krumdieck said.

Krumdieck and her teammates went all the way to Division II NCAA, winning a couple of conference championships and further cementing her passion in the sport. In 2000, she was named West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference player of the year.

After graduating college with an impressive record under her belt, Krumdieck decided it was time to take a break from volleyball, going on to teach fourth grade. But her love for the sport and desire to be back around a college community led her to become an assistant coach at High Point University in North Carolina, where she stayed for two years.

She then moved to Buffalo, N.Y. for a coaching job, and this is where Krumdieck was introduced to her first big program. But her desire to be back in the South and the copious amounts of snow led Krumdieck back to North Carolina at Davidson College.

“Davidson had really high academic standards, and I learned how to practice a good balance between academics and athletics,” said Krumdieck.

“Because I think that teaches you about life, having that balance.”

But after the head coach took an academic leave halfway through her second year there, Krumdieck was thrust into the position, where she learned what it meant to hold that position and the responsibilities that came with it.

“We are thrilled that Gretchen Krumdieck has decided to lead our volleyball program at Georgia College,” Director of Athletics Wendell Staton said in a previously published interview with GC. “She has proven herself as an outstanding assistant coach with tremendous integrity.”

As head coach, she’s looking forward to all the new opportunities that she sees before her, and looks to draw on past experience to help lead her.

“I’ve taken a lot of the old systems I’ve learned over the years and molded them into my own style,” Krumdieck said. “I’m really excited to get started.”

The program will spend the entirety of this school year recruiting and preparing to hit the courts in Fall 2013.

Posted by Powell Cobb on Aug 3 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.