With Sister Showing Way, Dood Doing Big Things to Elevate Grandville Volleyball
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
September 20, 2023
GRANDVILLE – As an incoming freshman, Zoey Dood remembers the euphoria she felt when she found out her older sister had been given the position of head coach of the Grandville volleyball program.
“I was super excited because it was always a dream of mine to have my sister be my coach, and I never thought it would actually happen and it did,” Dood said. “I knew she could make me better right away.”
Almost four years later, that expectation has become a reality.
Now a senior, the 6-foot-2 Dood has developed into one of the top players in the state and was recently named a finalist for this season’s Miss Volleyball Award.
For Dood’s sister, Jessica Vredevoogd, the opportunity to coach her younger sibling was too much to pass up.
“That was a big reason why I stopped playing volleyball overseas, was to come back and try and be a part of Zoey and (younger brother) Jackson’s lives more because I didn’t want to be that older sibling that didn’t exist,” Vredevoogd said. “They grew up not getting to know me as well, so to step into that role as her coach at Grandville was nice because I’ve had the chance to spend more time with her and it has built our relationship even more.”
With a 10-year age gap between them, Dood was a young child when she watched her older sister become a two-time all-state setter at Grandville before enjoying a successful career at Oakland University.
Vredevoogd, 28, who recently married, finished her final season for the Golden Grizzlies in 2016 and became the seventh player in program history to surpass 1,000 career kills.
She played overseas before returning to Grandville.
Dood, 18, saw the path her sister took to reach an elite level and wanted to follow in her footsteps.
“I would not have been as successful as I am today if I didn’t have my sister as my coach because I look up to her and I respect her and all of her accomplishments,” Dood said. “It has motivated me to want to be just like her and have the same accomplishments as she’s had.”
Dood, also a setter, received Division 1 all-state second-team accolades last year with an impressive stat line of 380 assists, 168 digs and 176 kills while leading the Bulldogs to a winning record. She posted a match-high 35 kills against East Kentwood last season during the Ottawa-Kent Conference Red Tournament.
Dood is ranked the state’s top player by Prep Dig, and committed to the University of Virginia last year.
“I’m pumped for her,” Vredevoogd said. “I think she's going to do awesome things there, and I'm just happy that someone else sees her potential. While coaching her the last four years has been fun, I'm excited to see her play and be able to thrive at the college level, too.”
Dood’s vast improvement from her freshman year until now has been impressive.
A strong worth ethic and a desire to reach the highest level have pushed her.
“My freshman year I was horrible, but I've improved exponentially and I know my sister has been a big part of that,” Dood said. “We would go into practice 30 minutes early, and I would practice my setting every single day.
“From freshman to sophomore year was an extreme change already in my development, and from there she has helped me so much and she's helped me with my IQ as well.”
Vredevoogd has seen major changes in her sister’s game and is proud of the progress she’s made.
“It’s her ability to really be intent about what you are saying to her, and then she's able to put it into action,” she said. “She's super coachable, but she’s hard-working, too. She's going to keep trying to do what I’m telling her.
“Freshman to sophomore was a big mental growth for her, and then sophomore to junior year and now her senior year you see the physical growth in her game, too.”
The dynamic between the sisters has been one of mutual respect and navigating the boundaries of a sister/coach relationship.
“I feel it’s different from your average mom and daughter experience,” Vredevoogd said. “It's interesting because she's actually watched me play, so I think she can be coached by me because she respects me a little bit in the sense that she's like, ‘OK, she actually did do what I’m trying to accomplish,’ but we do have our sister moments where there is more sass behind the tone. It’s like, do you want a coach's opinion or do you want a sister's opinion?”
Said Dood: “There are times when she says, ’I’m your coach so you need to treat me as a coach,’ and other times when I'm playing club and she’s my sister and now I can talk to her. Points where I can talk to her about certain things and points when I’m not technically allowed to where I approach her as a coach or just act like she's my coach and not my sister.”
Dood was an accomplished basketball player in middle school, but hasn’t played in high school due to her volleyball aspirations.
“My parents kept going back and forth about it and we just didn’t know if I would have time for that,” Dood said. “I couldn't fully commit to that, and I also knew that I wanted to play Division I volleyball in a Power 5 (conference) and be one of the top volleyball players in the country – so I knew I had to give that up to be able to do that.”
Dood will graduate early to get a jump start at Virginia.
“It was a very tough decision because I didn’t know if I wanted to miss out on my senior year, and I thought I would miss out on big senior events – and then I found out I wouldn’t,” Dood said. “What really sold me on it was my major (education), and they told me that I could get my master's degree in four and a half years if I graduated early. And I’ll have that extra semester, so my coach can develop me in the way she wants me to.”
As a team, the Bulldogs are striving to gain respectability in a difficult O-K Red.
They recently finished second at the Traverse City Invitational and lost a thrilling five-set match to Division 1 honorable mention Jenison to open conference play.
“I think Grandville volleyball always gets overlooked because we’ve always been the underdogs, but their drive to work hard is going to help us get more unexpected wins than anticipated,” Vredevoogd said. “And with Zoey being an offensive threat for us in the front row and being able to get a touch on every rally because she is a setter, I think that only helps us. She is one of our top scorers, and if we’re not able to use her then we have a hard time winning.”
Dean Holzwarth has covered primarily high school sports for Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV for five years after serving at the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years along with shorter stints at the Ionia Sentinel and WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Grandville's Zoey Dood is a recently-announced Miss Volleyball Award finalist this season. (Middle) Dood sets for the Bulldogs as a junior. (Top photo by Tully Chapman; middle photo courtesy of the Grandville volleyball program.)
SMCC's Windhams Agree to Coach Together - 'Us or Nothing' - Then Win It All
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
November 26, 2024
When Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central was down to needing just one point to clinch the Division 3 volleyball championship Saturday, assistant coach Randy Windham was fighting back tears.
“Just because I’m crying doesn’t mean this match is over,” Randy said in the huddle.
A few seconds later, it was over. SMCC had clinched the championship, and Randy had a front row seat to watch his wife, head coach Kim Windham, accept the trophy.
“I always call her the best coach in the family,” Randy said.
The Windhams are a coaching couple. They have been married since 1992, operate a business in Monroe together and this fall, for the first time, coached together.
It clearly was a winning combination.
When Kim was approached about coaching SMCC prior to the season, she said Randy – who has been the head boys basketball coach at SMCC since 2009 – talked her into taking the job.
“I said, ‘I’ll take it if you’ll coach,’” she said. “’If you want me to coach, then obviously you are going to coach along with me. It’s us or nothing.’ He was all in from the get-go.’”
Randy, she thought, would bring an extra element to the bench that the Kestrels needed.
“He’s so good with the mental side of things with kids,” Kim said. “I knew how much he could contribute with that. All I wanted to do was coach. I wanted to do the Xs and Os, the practice plans and teaching and let him do the rest. He’s been absolutely fabulous.”
She said having Randy near helped her, too.
“Before every match, he’s my calming force. I lean on him a lot.”
During matches, Kim said Randy was often the person talking during the huddles.
“With volleyball you only have only three minutes between sets,” she said. “You have to figure out the rotations, who is going to start, what we are going to do … so as I’m at the table figuring that out, he’s talking to the group about what just happened or what we are going to do next.
“It’s good to know he’s there taking care of things, saying the things the way I know I would want them to be said.”
While SMCC has had several deep MHSAA Tournament runs in recent years and an outstanding volleyball tradition, this year’s team did lack experience coming into the season. Windham was named head coach in May.
“We only really had three returning starters coming back,” she said. “When we started the season, the question was how we were going to get everyone else up to speed. We knew we had our work cut out for us. We had to figure out how we were going to make the puzzle pieces fit.”
Randy said he was confident Kim could get the job done.
“She’s been known to build programs,” Randy said. “It really isn’t about how good the players are, but what they will buy into. She’ll get them there. We had some good players, but she took them to the next level with her coaching.”
Kim set out to change the culture around an ultra-successful volleyball program. Early in the season, for example, the team focused on the fundamentals.
“We went back to basic fundamentals,” Kim said. “We knew if we wanted to be good, we had to be fundamentally sound first.”
Kim graduated from SMCC in 1990 after an outstanding volleyball career and went on to play two years at the college level. She launched her coaching career in 1996, only a few months after their son Bryce was born.
“I would take him with me to practice in his car seat, set him on the mat and coach,” she said.
Sports have been a common denominator for the Windham family for years.
Randy opened Monroe Sports Varsity Athletic, a screen printing and embroidery business, in 1991, a year before he and Kim were married. An assistant coach at SMCC since the 1990s, he also played professional slow-pitch softball for years. Bailey, a college volleyball player herself after playing at SMCC, lives in Indiana where she is a nurse. Bryce, who was drafted by the Chicago Cubs and played several seasons of Minor League Baseball, is working at the family business and is an assistant basketball coach at SMCC for his dad.
Kim started working full-time at the business in 2003. The day after winning the Kestrels’ most recent championship, the Windhams were back at the shop, working on filling orders.
The family bond is special.
“Randy and I just love spending time together,” Kim said. “Sometimes during basketball season Randy will be gone late or watching film. We almost get more upset when we are not together.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central head volleyball coach Kim Windham, right, and assistant coach/husband Randy hold the program’s latest championship trophy. (Middle) The Windhams exchange a glance on the court at Kellogg Arena. (Top photo courtesy of the Windham family. Middle photo by Stephanie Hawkins.)