Final Draft of Profile Piece

In the cluster of athletic offices on the upper level of Anderson Athletic Center, tucked into the back corner,
Hess is the head women’s volleyball coach at Kalamazoo College, and has held the position for 26 years, leading the program to a .553 winning percentage and winning the MIAA tournament five times. Before becoming a coach, she played volleyball at the University of Michigan for four years while earning her degree in exercise science, and then went through a series of coaching positions at high schools throughout Michigan before being offered the position at Kalamazoo.
Hess has been involved with athletics all her life, and has gotten to where she is today largely as a result of her lifelong involvement with the sport of volleyball, and many might suppose that her current position is one that she has been working toward her entire life. Interestingly enough, those people would turn out to be wrong..
“I remember exactly where I was, at practice in college, when we were talking about if we’d ever coach,” Hess explains, laughing at the memory. “I put my hand up and said ‘I will NEVER coach, cause I can’t deal with people who don’t know the game like I do.’”
However, as often happens in life, Hess’s path soon diverged from where she had previously thought it would lead. She began her time at the University of Michigan believing that she was going to become a doctor, but taking pre med classes soon proved to be too much for her to handle along with her athletic schedule. She tried changing her major to physical therapy, but that also wasn’t the right fit. “I said to myself, I can’t study medicine at this level while I love this game and put my heart and soul into this game.” Instead, she decided to change her major to exercise science, and she soon learned that it was a perfect fit.
“It was wonderful, it was everything I wanted to study. It was everything about how the body works…it was what I wanted to know, going into it, but I didn’t know that. I thought I wanted to be a doctor.”
Once she had found a major that was the right fit, Hess’s college career continued smoothly academically and athletically. After graduation, she decided that she wanted to remain at the University of Michigan to pursue a graduate degree in athletic training, and found herself assigned to the volleyball team as a trainer. However, one day everything changed drastically; Hess was playing in a recreational volleyball game and tore her ACL. Suddenly, she was forced to reconsider her choices and reevaluate. A friend that was coaching high school girls volleyball at Gabriel Richard High School in Ann Arbor offered her a chance to coach the junior varsity team, and in a time of transition, Hess accepted the offer.
“We were horrible, just horrible,” she relates. “But I met my husband there, he was their girl’s basketball and softball coach.” Their relationship blossomed, and soon the two were married. Hess then took a job offer at as the head volleyball coach at Dexter High School, but the job was short-lived, as her husband was offered a women’s basketball position at Western, so they moved to Kalamazoo.
“I never ever ever thought I would coach again,” Hess says, smiling. However, this was yet another example of how her life has fallen perfectly into place. She was offered the head coaching position at Kalamazoo Central High School, and soon after, she heard that the head-coaching job at Kalamazoo College was open. Unsure about whether apply, she eventually decided to try for the position, and was soon offered a part-time job as the head women’s volleyball coach.
For three years, Hess coached the Kalamazoo volleyball team part-time while completing her Masters at Western Michigan University, and in 1987 she was offered a position on the Kalamazoo College faculty after completing her degree. As she explains it, “The universe pretty much conspired and said ‘No, you’re gonna go here.’” The pieces of her life continued to fall into place as she began teaching classes at the college, including physical education classes, and also took on rolls such as the assistant softball and women’s basketball coach as well as the associate chaplain.
These days, Hess’s job titles include head women’s volleyball coach, chair of the department of physical education and athletics, and professor of physical education. Although these various roles may seemed somewhat varied and time consuming, Hess wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I love what I do, and it uses what I feel are my skills, and my knowledge base,” she says happily. “It allows me to do what I know…I can’t imagine a better life for me.”
She uses her life experiences to offer advice to her students, telling those who ask about her belief that everyone’s life can work out if they just work hard and believe that good things can come from their efforts. Using her faith and life path, she is able to help students believe that they too can find a career that brings them as much joy as she has found in hers.
“My life fell into place. It was nothing I ever pursued, but because I loved the game, the game pursued me.”