Gibson takes over as new volleyball coach
By Jared Bell
IV Leader Sports Editor
The IVCC volleyball team has a new head coach.
Spring Valley native Nicci Gibson has taken the reigns from former head coach Laurie Polte, who stepped down because dates of IVCC games conflicted with her daughter’s high school games.
Gibson, a former Hall High School graduate, has spent the last 14 years coaching in Georgia, but decided to move back to Illinois to be closer her family in Illinois despite not having a teaching or coaching job.
After the move in the end of June, she saw an ad for the IVCC job in the newspaper. She applied for the position and after an interview was given the job.
“I’ve been down in Georgia for 14 years and now I have come back and it’s kind of neat to be back in the Illinois Valley where I was born and where grew up,” she said.
“I thought she would be a great fit for the volleyball program; the kids would like to play for her and I thought she could take our program to the next level,” IVCC athletic director Mike Riley said.
After graduating from Hall, Gibson attended Georgia Southern University on a full-ride volleyball scholarship. After graduating from college, she stayed in Georgia, where she held a number of different coaching positions.
Her first position was at Groves High School as the school’s head coach. After a two-year stint there, she spent the next five years coaching club teams.
She spent two years as the coach of the Swainsboro Volleyball Club team and three years as the coach of the Cobb Atlanta Juniors team.
She then moved on to Lassiter High School, where she spent the last five years as the head coach.
“I think her experience is the first thing that got my attention and when we had the interview, her personality and knowledge of volleyball and the sport came through immediately,” Riley said.
Gibson was given the IVCC job only two weeks before the first day of practices, which began on August 1. Since she was hired near the start of the season, she was not been able to recruit players for this year’s team. Due to that, the first day of practices only eight girls were on the team. After dropping down to seven player, currently 12 players are apart of the squad.
“I could’ve been recruiting in the spring, but I was in Georgia,” Gibson said. “I came from Georgia and there was no recruiting (at IVCC) done. I think that was a huge factor because there are scholarships to offer, it’s just we can’t recruit you now.”
According to Riley, the reason Gibson was hired so late in the summer was because of the lengthy process of hiring a coach.
In April after Polte informed Riley she would not be returning, the job was offered internally, before it was offered externally. After resumes were received, Riley decided on the coaches he wanted to bring in for an interview. After interviewing the candidates, Gibson was hired. In all, it took about two-and-a-half months.
“It’s a lengthy process to hire any coach and most people don’t realize that,” Riley said.
Gibson’s main goal as the coach at IVCC is just to get the team on the winning track, year in and year out.
“My goal is to build the IVCC program,” Gibson said. “I want to build this program so that girls from Hall, and L-P, and Streator and maybe even further away will want to come to IV to play volleyball. That’s my ultimate goal.”