Amanda Renkema wasted little time giving back to a sport that gave so much to her.
Just three weeks after winding down her collegiate volleyball career at Simon Fraser University, Renkema was overseeing tryouts for the Richmond Air Attack’s U15 Black team.
It happened to be the very same club that opened the door for her opportunity years earlier when longtime Air Attack technical director Adrian Goodmurphy saw an unpolished “tall and athletic player with a good attitude.”
Renkema and her former teammate Sarah Hockley conclude their first season as co-coaches at this weekend’s provincial championships in Abbotsford.
“I’ve worked with a lot of Volleyball B.C. programs but coaching a team is a different road,” said Renkema. “There’s a lot of game strategy and who works well with each other as opposed to just working on skill base. It’s definitely a different aspect of coaching and I have been learning on the go.”
It was Goodmurphy that convinced Renkema to come back to her former club as a volunteer mentor. Having an established university player in her early 20s working with 14-and-15-year-olds couldn’t be a more ideal situation.
She is a coach and a role model.
“I think the girls can definitely relate to me and Sarah,” she said. “We are not their parents’ age and they feel comfortable to ask us questions. The girls are still at their development stage as players. It’s when they hit 16 and beyond where the focus really shifts to competition.
“There were volunteer and guest coaches who did this for me for three years. There is appreciation for what they did and it’s good to be giving back.”
Renkema’s road to becoming an elite player got off to a rocky start when she was cut from her elementary school team in Grade 6. She made it the following a year and then headed to Richmond Christian where she began to realize her potential as a dominant middle blocker.
“When I went to the Grade 8 tryouts I didn’t even know what a position was. I was the tallest kid on the team by far and they put me in the middle and that was my destiny,” smiled Renkema, who now stands at 6-foot-1.
She attended Air Attack tryouts two years later and made the “A” team. She flourished in the club environment and was selected for the U16 Baden Cup where she earned a spot on the provincial team.
With the encouragement of an older brother and attending a smaller private school, Renkema was always keen to participate in many sports as possible. However, her now flourishing volleyball career had put her at a crossroad.
“My Grade 10 year was so busy because I was playing (fastpitch) as well,” she recalled. “I realized I had to make a choice and go with (only) volleyball.”
It was during tryouts for the provincial U18 team when Renkema caught the eye of then SFU head coach Lisa Sulatycki. The Clan were converting from a CIS to a NCAA program and the chance to play exclusively American schools and travel south was alluring.
Renkema would be part of SFU’s inaugural NCAA recruiting class in 2010. After a redshirt freshman season, she earned a spot in the starting line-up and would go on to appear in 110 matches over the next four years. Three of those seasons she served as co-captain.
Wins were tough to come by for the Clan during Renkema’s first two seasons on the court. It eventually led to Sulatycki’s departure and the arrival of University of Montana assistant Gina Schmidt who starred at Oregon State University as a player.
The program turned the corner under Schmidt, leading to SFU’s first winning season in Renekma’s senior year.
“It was just a change of culture,” said Renkema. “Lisa was a great coach but the program just needed a new path and a new culture. We had a lot of talented recruits but just didn’t have the results.”
The end of Renkema’s university career coincided with her graduating with a degree in Communications and Media Studies. She is putting it to use at the Port Moody based Selects Performance and also works part-time at the Richmond Olympic Oval. It has meant a hectic schedule at times, with her coaching duties too, but Renkema makes it work.
“As a player, you know what does and doesn’t work for them,” she added. “It’s a good group of girls to coach and they are at the age where you still can mould them.”
