(Guthrie Center) ACGC will enter the volleyball season with a new head coach.
Jen Policky has been hired to guide the Chargers. She says she grew up with a love for volleyball. “I played through high school and into college and have been playing in an adult league ever since. What has attracted me to coaching in general is helping kids these days develop into the people we want them to be and part of that is through the lessons you can learn in sports.”
She’s coached club and youth volleyball, but says she also does a lot of coaching in her everyday life through her day job. She works full-time with a team of 40 State Farm agents to help them with their sales skills, business acumen, and is involved with recruiting and hiring. “Being a good leader on the court and being a good leader in your business, there’s really no difference. It’s really about understanding what has to be done and having the voice to articulate it to your team and showing them how to get it done. So there’s a lot of similarities there regardless of what we are coaching.”
Trevor Irwin accepted a position in central Iowa after leading the Chargers to back-to-back 20+ win seasons. Policky inherits a program that is in great shape. “I’m so excited. We’ve had the leader in the state in kills with Chloe Largent. She’s going to be walking into her senior year. We also have another really strong senior in Alaina Bunde and four other seniors back. We have just as many in the other grades as well. We’ve got a few strong setters we are excited about, but the underclassmen are really exciting as well. I’ve got a some really great sophomores and freshmen to really watch this year.
Activities Director Cody Matthewson reached out to Policky about the opening in early June. Since then she’s been trying to get as much accomplished in the offseason as possible. “We’ve been doing open gyms, we’ve been doing small group practices. Of course all of that was following me getting my coaching authorization. We go to a weekly scrimmage in Audubon and are gearing up for the Central College scrimmage camp in early August. We’ll also do our own camp here in August.”
She says she wants her team to be known as good leaders with positive attitudes that win or lose with grace.
