Shelbie Harris
Staff Writer
Chad Teichert, the coach responsible for leading the ISU Women’s Volleyball team to its first Big Sky title in over two decades, is leaving Idaho State University to finish his career with Star Valley High School in Afton, Wyoming.
During seven seasons as head coach, Teichert was named Big Sky Coach of the Year for the undefeated home season of 2012 and Big Sky Championship season of 2013, and has led the Bengals to three Big Sky Tournament appearances overall.
“It’s easy to talk about a coaches achievements, but really it’s the team that does it,” said Teichert. “When I got here the team had won two matches in the conference the year before, they’d won six overall, so the fact that we’ve won 23 matches overall each of the last three years is pretty significant.”
After graduating from Brigham Young University in 1982, Teichert went on to coach high school volleyball teams in Wyoming at Cokeville from 1983 to 1993, Mountain View from 1994 through 1998 and Green River from 1998 to 2000.
Making the decision to hang up his boots at Idaho State University didn’t come easy for Teichert, but at the end of the day he said he knows this is the most responsible decision to make regarding his future.
“I just knew that sooner or later I needed to go back because I can raise my retirement income significantly,” Teichert said. “When a couple of schools got ahold of me this spring I thought maybe now’s the time. I hate to wait too long because then I might not get the chance.”
A coach that not only produced results at the team level, Teichert has also proven himself to be highly effective in developing players individually.
In 2011, Breanne Van Every became the first athlete under Teichert to achieve All-Big Sky Conference First Team honors, in addition to Lori Mendenhall and Mackenzie Filer achieving the 2012 and 2013 Big Sky Tournament MVP awards, respectively.
“He’s just so caring,” said Rebeka Martindell a redshirt senior setter who has played under Teichert for three seasons. “Of course he wants to produce really good volleyball players, but he cares more about how we are as young women in this world.”
His athletes obviously perform well on the court, however, their performance in the classroom is equally recognizable.
Since his first season, more than 13 different student-athletes have been presented with Big Sky Conference All-Academic Honors. One of these honorees was Karissa Legaux who earned all-academic honors for each of her four seasons under Teichert finishing with the Female Big Sky Scholar Athlete award at the 2012 Bennion Banquet.
“There are some great qualities I want to instill in my players but I’m not sure I have them,” Teichert said. “I tell you, when you come into the gym, you’ve got to be focused, you’ve got to plan on getting better, and you need to work. Another thing is you’ve got to compete but at the same time you’ve got to be a great teammate.”
Leaving collegiate sports to coach at the high school level will require an adjustment period, however, over the years Teichert has continued to organize and conduct over 450 volleyball camps at the high school, collegiate, and club levels.
He said the game doesn’t change much, only the caliber of players. Rather than having a team full of tall, hard-hitting, high-jumping, quick, all-around-athletes, typical high schools are lucky enough to produce one athlete of that merit.
“It’s been hard,” Teichert said. “I love this group of girls that I’m working with now and they’re great kids, and they’re good volleyball players, and I think they can be very successful next year and hopefully in years to come. Leaving them is really hard for me.”
