The new Mexico volleyball head coach Tami Sells is entering her first high school head coaching job.

Sells was announced as the program’s head coach in a Facebook post on May 30. She has a variety of volleyball and coaching experience that she thinks can increase Mexico's 12 wins from a season ago, which was one win shy of the school record in 2001. 

“I was extremely thrilled and excited just to see where we can take this volleyball program,” Sells said. “Last year was one of those years where we got to see the potential. I’m really hoping to take that and build on that.”

When Sells was in school, she played volleyball in Michigan but started her volleyball coaching career six years ago at the Mexico Area Family YMCA after deciding to help Tom Fischer coach her kids’ teams. She helped build and coach St. Brendan’s volleyball program, which is entering its third year. She is currently and she said she will continue being an associate professor of psychology at Moberly Area Community College. 

Sells said she has coached kids at a variety of ages from third-graders to seventh-graders. Her most recent coaching stint has been at the middle school level at St. Brendan School. Before she helped establish St. Brendan’s volleyball program, Sells said the girls played on other schools’ teams and were then invited to form their own team and be part of a program through the Catholic Diocese of Jefferson City because it wouldn’t allow teams with girls from multiple schools.

“The principal at the time was like, ‘Tami, if you can get this ready, go for it,’” Sells said. “At the time, I was coordinating the athletics at St. Brendan and I still am. It’s been fun to see that grow.”

Sells has played and coached other sports in her life such as soccer and baseball. She has coached basketball with her husband, Aaron, at St. Brendan and has enjoyed all of that but her favorite has been volleyball, which Sells said has “always been my heart.” 

After the right number of girls were “rounded up” at St. Brendan, Sells had more of an opportunity to use her coaching methods for a program in its infancy. While Mexico’s program has been around a while, she said there will always be new players. It just so happens that the freshmen will be the same girls Sells coached at the YMCA.

“The way I view coaching is, yes, we want to be competitive,” Sells said. “At the same time, I feel like the underlying growth that we are after is personal growth, physical and mental health, team building, confidence building and finding out what your full potential is. That’s where my core will be starting with any program.”

Sells experienced personal growth during her playing days when she was a varsity captain. She said she had to be a leader on the court and learned much about volleyball while rotating all around the court — as an outside hitter in the front court and defensive specialist in the back court — for a smaller school team. 

“I never left the court so a lot of people came to me for questions, and I was able to help answer them and help build their skills,” Sells said. “As most captains are, you tend to help when the coach says, ‘Hey, go work with them really fast.’ I loved doing that as a player.” 

Because of her past history with her new team, Sells said she knows about half the Mexico girls but mainly wants to focus on making that 100 percent. She wants all of them to build their life skills along with their volleyball skills.

“We haven’t built that team dynamic quite yet,” Sells said. “My goal is to get to know some of the girls and where we can improve our team dynamics and that communication. My major focus is how I can teach them some life skills through volleyball.”