March 11, 2008

Augustana names Janelle Hester as new volleyball head coach

Rock Island, Ill. –  Augustana is pleased to announce the hiring of Janelle Hester to the position of head volleyball coach. Hester replaces Stacey Ruff, who resigned in January for family considerations.

This will be Hester’s first collegiate head coaching job. She comes to Augustana after serving as a graduate assistant at St.AmbroseUniversity for the last three seasons. She also has head coaching experience at the club level, leading the Quad City Platform Elite as well as Davenport, Iowa’s Dig This clubs.

Janelle was a three-time All-State player at Davenport Central High School and was the Mississippi Athletic Conference Player of the Year her senior year. At the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, she was a two-time second team All-Southeastern Conference selection as an outside hitter. She was also twice named “Lady Vol Athlete of the Month” and SEC Player of the Week.

After her fine college career, Hester was one of only 32 players invited to a pre-Olympic tryout in Colorado Springs. Although not selected for the final U.S. Olympic team, she used the tryout as a springboard to play professionally in Europe for a year, where she competed as an opposite hitter with the Nova KBM Branik club in Maribor, Slovenia.

Hester graduated from the University of Tennessee with a B.A. in early childhood development and is currently on schedule to receive her master’s in social work from St. Ambrose this spring.