By Damon Bennett
Since 2001, the Northwest Vikings have qualified for the Nebraska School Activities Association state volleyball tournament 20 times consecutively. This being no average feat, it’s easy to question how NW became a powerhouse in volleyball. The answer lies with business teacher and former head coach Diane Rouzee, who, after starting her coaching career in 1984, built one of the longest lasting dynasties Class B volleyball has ever seen. But after hanging up her whistle, she has continued her success as a coach in a place far from the gym—the golf course.
After starting as an assistant, Rouzee became head coach for Grand Island Northwest in 1988, taking the team to state her first year at the helm. The Vikings qualified for the state tournament 27 times throughout her career, winning the championship in 1994, 2003 and 2012.
Rouzee attributes her success to those around her, saying that the program could not have become what it has without the people at NW.
“It wasn’t just me, it was a lot of people,” Rouzee explains. “Besides the team of girls I coached, I always felt like I needed to coach the people I worked with. I wanted the booster club, the custodians, the administration to be on my team.”
As time went on, Rouzee realized she had created a monster, one that absorbed most of her personal life. Important events, new family members and shorter off-seasons led her to retire from the team in 2017, while continuing to teach business classes at the school. Her career was one for the books, with a final record of 768-183 and having won several awards in her 34 years as head coach, including the Heart of a Coach Legacy Award from a former principal.
“I got Conference Coach of the Year a few times from the Grand Island Independent, [Coach of the Year] a few times for Nebraska, and a really big deal for me was in 2018 when I got National Coach of the Year. It was an accumulation of a lot of good things; a lot of great memories and moments.”
Not long after retiring, Rouzee was approached with a new endeavor: assisting the coach of the girls golf team.
“I was working a basketball game and [former Athletic Director] Mike Sorensen came up to me and said ‘What are you doing next fall? I need an assistant girls golf coach,’” she recounts. “So I sat down with head coach Alex Hull and I discussed [it] with my husband before making the decision.”
Rouzee saw her opportunity as a blessing, still being able to work with kids outside of the classroom. Now, two years later, the team has qualified for the state tournament twice in a row, missing the district championship by only one stroke this past season.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” Rouzee remarks. “You’d have to ask coach Hull, I’m sure he already had an image in his mind of what I was gonna be like. He’s very knowledgeable, and he runs a great program. What I wanted to offer was to build some culture and some things I knew from working with girls.”
After a legendary career in volleyball, she now faced a much different season and team layout with girls golf, but knew that her experience could be valuable.
“It’s a lot harder sport than a lot of people understand,” she adds. “It takes a lot of mental toughness to compete. Coach Hull and the girls basically put their arms around me and helped me. I’ve found that some of those things we did in volleyball work just as good on the golf course. You’re still competing, you’re still wanting to be successful and pushing them past where they think they can go.”
Rouzee has always enjoyed golf, playing often as a way to bond (and compete) with family. She explains how lucky she feels now as another opportunity to embrace her love of the game came when a coaching position opened up this year on the boys team.
“I’m really looking forward to that. I know what it’s like to miss a putt, to lose a tournament, and I think that experience will help and bring some of that culture to the boys team as well.”
Rouzee had already impressed a team, a state and even the entire country with her skills mentoring high school athletes, and now she continues to build her legacy as one of the most successful coaches—of any sport—in Viking history.
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