DeAnn Woodin is following her passion for being a leader in her ninth year as Coe’s volleyball coach, but she wasn’t always on the coaching path.

Woodin attended the University of South Dakota and transferred to the University of Northern Iowa for a double major in Finance and Economics. She was a stockbroker for a few years while being a volunteer coach at UNI and then an assistant at Wartburg.

Throughout this process Woodin realized that coaching was her passion. She coached at Kirkwood and went to the University of Iowa as the Director of Volleyball Operations before coming to Coe.

Woodin’s best influences in life were her coaches and teachers, so making the switch from stock broker to coaching was only logical.

“I love helping people and working with young people and coaching is essentially teaching,” she explained. “If you do something you love every day you don’t feel like it’s a job.”

The Kohawks won the Iowa Conference regular-season title this week with a 7-0 record and are looking forward to the conference tournament.

Woodin wants to instill values that will help the team down the road. She pushes a strong work ethic, great communication and respecting teammates. All these skills not only help the team in the gym, but also carry over into the professional world.

“If you’re not challenged you aren’t going to change.” Woodin said. “We don’t expect [the team] to be perfect, we're just expecting them to make progress ”

Woodin attributes the successful year to the fact the team takes it one day at a time and does not try to get ahead of themselves. They focus every day on trying to get better. Even on the days where they struggle there is always something to take away from that.

“It’s been a great year,” she said. “I look forward to coming to the gym every day. It’s a fun group of kids.”

Woodin is inspired by her team and said she can learn a lot from them.

"It’s been a blessing," she said. "I’ve had such a great group of kids who are on board for whatever we are helping them with.”