FORT COLLINS — Cathy Mahaffey was one of the first contacts Tom Hilbert made when he arrived in Fort Collins.
He was taking over a successful volleyball program at Colorado State after building one at Idaho, and one of the first people he met on campus was Mahaffey. At the time, she was an assistant coach with the school’s club field hockey team, and she also happened to run a volleyball program herself, the NorCo Volleyball Club.
They built a friendship, one that’s been mutually beneficial for both parties for nearly two decades.
“I don’t think it was a conscious decision,” Mahaffey said. “The friendships and relationships we’ve built over the years, they have remained steadfast, and obviously we are all doing this for the kids, and that’s what really paid off.
“It’s not only cool, it also reaffirms you’ve been doing the right things. You’ve tried to always put the kids first and watching them grow, it makes it all worth while.”
What Hilbert has done has been impressive. He has guided the Rams to the NCAA Tournament every one of his 18 years as head coach, a program that is consistently ranked in the top 25 every year. What Mahaffey has done with NorCo is equally impressive, as the non-profit club has grown to practicing at local middle schools when it started in 1985 to having the ability to build their own impressive facility in Windsor.
There is nothing run-of-the-mill about it in Hilbert’s eyes, one he trusts enough to enroll his daughter, Myles, in this season on the 14 Black team.
“That’s a very well run club. It’s big, and it’s financially solvent,” he said. “You see clubs constantly exist for three or four years and then go under, then another one exists for three or four years and then go under. NorCo has kept themselves at a good level of financial solvency, and they’ve built that facility. It’s unbelievable how well they’ve done. They’ve really done a great job.”
It is a club that has often tapped into Hilbert’s resources for coaches. This season, NorCo sent six teams to the USAV Junior Nationals in New Orleans, and two of those teams were coached by current or former Rams — Sam Peters and Jamie Colaizzi (17 Black) and Dri Culbert (13 Black). Throughout time, many of Hilbert’s assistant coaches have taken positions in the club, which he said gives them all a chance to increase their network in volleyball circles.
“Having such high-level playing ability and having them on the court coaching is probably the best influence on these young girls,” Mahaffey said. “They can see what they can come and achieve.”
A few times the Rams have landed players from the NorCo system, most recently Colaizzi. When she played for the club, she was coached by a Ram, Katelin Batten, who helped fuel the Windsor native’s attraction to Colorado State.
She said it’s been an amazing journey, being able to gain from the relationship as a player and repay the favor now as a coach.
“I know NorCo has a good relationship with Northern Colorado as well. I think there’s definitely good connections there, for more than just CSU, but I definitely know Cathy has a good relationship with our coaches, which makes it really cool to work there and to kind of expose our kids to CSU volleyball a little bit. I think it’s huge for any club,” she said.
“I think it brings in more kids to the club, and there’s better chances of attracting higher level kids. What’s really interesting about the club scene now is that nobody is afraid to drive. We have kids from Brighton, Denver, a kid from Wyoming on my team. People are willing to go anywhere. It’s cool we can expose these kids to good head college coaches coming in and running clinics and having a good relationship with CSU and UNC. I think that’s a really good attraction for college prospects.”
Hilbert recently ran a clinic at NorCo, as did Peters and Colaizzi. But seeing prospects close up is not what he said the Rams gain most from the relationship. Rather it is the building of a volleyball community in Northern Colorado that keeps the sport vibrant in this area of the state.
Where he sees his program benefit most is in the stands on game days at Moby Arena. Not only are the Rams annually ranked as one of the top teams in the nation, but they are often found in the top 15 nationally in terms of attendance.
“I think since I walked in there, one of my purposes, one of my missions was to make the program is one where recruits walk into and say they want to play here because this community is so volleyball focused,” Hilbert said. “Our relationship with NorCo has been really key to that whole thing. We’ve had four or five NorCo players, and they’ve all been good. But we’ve lost more than we’ve gotten. That’s not what matters. What matters is you have a relationship with the club and the community, and some of those people are buying season tickets. There’s all kind of good things going on.”
Mike Brohard: 970-635-3633, mbrohard@reporter-herald.com and twitter.com/mbrohard
