Coach Jen Salmans

    Oklahoma City University head volleyball coach Jen Salmans will be a member of the coaching staff of the Oklahoma region girls national youth team in the 2008 USA Volleyball High Performance Championships, which start Wednesday in Tucson, Ariz.
    The Dodge City native was a Kansas 6A all-state volleyball player for the Dodge City High School team that made the state tournament in 1996.
    "These kids are the best of the best," said Salmans of the players in the tournament field. "They've already got college coaches looking at them at the age of 16."
    Sixteen teams from all over the country will compete in the girls national youth division. Jeff Boyland of Central Oklahoma will be the head coach of the Oklahoma team, whose members are primarily from the Oklahoma City and Tulsa areas.
    "We selected a team of 10 from 20 kids that came out for our tryouts," Salmans said.
    But the benefit of exposure does not limit itself to the ten girls on the Oklahoma team.
    Salmans said she is in a unique position to make contact with some of the most promising high school volleyball players in the nation, and she hopes to use the experience as a recruiting tool.
    "The great thing is that I not only get to coach some of the most talented kids in the state, but I get to see kids from all over the country," Salmans said.
    She added that recruiting in volleyball, like other collegiate sports, is a year-round process.
    "It's hard to look at kids during the season since high school and college volleyball schedules conflict so much," Salmans said. "So we do things like this in the spring and the summer to see where high school players are with their game. You've always got to keep in mind the players that you're losing each year and what your team will need in the coming years."
    Salmans took the head coaching job at Oklahoma City University for the 2006 season after the university had not fielded a volleyball team since 1984. Last year, she led the Stars to a 34-10 record and a berth in the NAIA Region VI semifinals.
    "A lot of the team's success has to do with getting great recruits," Salmans said. "You've got to have kids that love to work hard and want to help us get to our ultimate goal, and that's a national championship."
    The coach has high hopes for her OCU Stars this season as well.
    "We've finally got the depth that I'm comfortable with where we are at every position," Salmans said.
    The closest stop to Salmans' old stomping grounds on the Stars' schedule this season is in Baldwin City for the Baker University Invitational in September.
    But the miles between Salmans and the town in which she grew up does not get in the way of her fond memories of her time in Dodge.
    "The athletics and everything I was able to do there, I'll always call Dodge City my home," Salmans said.