Leah Young never thought she would be teaching, let alone coaching.
Now heading into her second year working at Medora Junior-Senior High School, she will be doing both.
Young just wrapped up her first year teaching science at Medora. A couple of weeks ago, the volleyball head coaching position came open, and Athletic Director Kara Hunt asked Young if she would interested in taking it.
Young, a former volleyball player for the Hornets in the early 2000s, jumped at the opportunity.
She graduated from Medora in 2005, where she played both volleyball and basketball. She said all of the girls who played volleyball with her also played basketball.
While she was playing for the Hornets, the team had winning seasons each year in volleyball.
“I loved it. It was so fun,” Young said of her playing career. “We had a great team. We played volleyball and basketball together. We always had winning seasons and records for volleyball.”
Young was offered scholarships to play collegiately in both sports. She ultimately chose to go play basketball at Lincoln Trail College, but she quickly noted she still loved volleyball.
She quickly realized the college life wasn’t for her, though, and decided to start working full time instead. Young worked for 10 years at Lannett Co. Inc., formerly known as Kremers Urban Pharmaceuticals, in Seymour.
After Young had a daughter and started attending school functions, that’s when her interest in teaching began.
“It wasn’t something I always thought I was going to do,” Young said.
Now she will add another thing to her plate as head coach of the volleyball program. They have already started some open gyms for the summer, and Young said they’ve had as many as 21 girls show up.
“For Medora, that’s a big number,” Young said.
Right now, she is holding workouts twice a week from 5 to 7 p.m., and she said there have been at least 12 girls at each open gym so far.
“Just trying to get ready for August,” she said.
Some of the key things Young has the girls working on right now are just basic fundamentals, like serving, passing, setting, hitting, getting positions straightened out and working on rotations.
She said once July rolls around, the team will go a bit more in-depth on some more specifics for the season.
In addition to on-court workouts, Young has the girls doing a lot of things off of the court within the community. She said when she was at Medora, she remembers her and her teammates being really involved with community service. She believes that has dropped off a bit the past couple of years.
So far this season, Young has had her team do some community service with the Lions Club and picked up trash along State Road 235.
“One, it’s good for them just to get involved in the community and get more people to want to come out and watch them,” Young said.
Young thinks her experiences as a former player will help her relate with the girls more.
“I think it’ll be good just because I can tell them that I’ve been there,” she said. “I think a lot of people think you don’t have a lot of opportunities coming from such a small school, but I did back in 2005, and that was before social media and everything. That might boost their egos a little bit and inspire them to make something out of themselves coming from a smaller school.”
Young also teaches all of her players, so she thinks that has helped her adjust to the coaching role because everyone is already comfortable with her from time spent in the classroom.
Official practice for the Hornets starts Aug. 1, and their first game will be Aug. 16.
“The main thing right now is getting people dedicated to the sport and coming to the open gyms over the summer and trying to make them push themselves and do conditioning,” Young said. “Dedicated and devoting their time trying to get them to have the love for the game where they want to be there so when we start winning, it’s fun.”