Elle Nesbitt gets ready to make a serve during practice last week.
There are not many people in the world who get to experience coaching their child at any point in their life. It’s considered a special situation for a reason.
Even more rare is a parent who gets to coach not only their kid, but their kid who is one of the best players around.
Woodland volleyball coach Jeff Nesbitt is getting to do all of that right now and for eight more weeks or so, depending how far the team goes. A lot of that is on the shoulders of his daughter, Elle Nesbitt, who in her senior year has asserted herself as clearly one of the best setters in southwest Washington.
There’s no getting around that a parent/child coaching situation is a tricky one, especially during the teenage years. All the benefits both sides get out of it, such as time together and mutual enjoyment of common interests, can ironically be just as negative for some combos, but for Elle and Jeff it’s rarely an issue. At this point, it’s probably hard for them to even distinguish the two roles.
“Cheryl (Elle’s mom) started coaching her in fifth grade and continued through middle school and I have been coaching her in club since she was 13,” said Jeff. “We have a much stronger relationship because of the interaction we have together on the volleyball court.”
This fall, the Beavers need a lot of interaction from Elle to her teammates in the heat of the action in order to be successful. Besides her, the team is described as a pretty young group. So far, she’s excelling at that, and the Beavers have only one tally so far in the loss column.
“It’s weird,” said Elle on being a senior. “I’ve always been looking up to seniors, and now everyone’s looking to me.”
For Jeff, the enhanced leadership only makes his job that much easier.
“Elle is a very intelligent young lady who is a student of the game,” he said. “It is like having an assistant coach on the court at all times.”
In a lot of cases, parent/coaches will agree to draw boundaries between team and home, but in this case, both invite the opportunity to talk ball at the dinner table or on the couch whenever they want.
“Not many dads can say they have a whole lot in common with their teenage daughters,” says Jeff.
“We ask each other for input and advice on a lot of things to see different perspectives of the team,” says Elle. “Our minds are a lot alike.”
An example of that shared thinking is their shared pursuit of greatness. To get there, sacrifice is needed and, more often than anyone else, Jeff directs the heat at Elle to get the team going or get a point across.
“In games he knows he can take it out on me,” says Elle, who says she can handle it.
Admittedly, Jeff says there have been some instances where they struggled to get along, but those times are short-lived.
“I believe both my daughters respect my coaching abilities and my knowledge of the game,” said Jeff.
Another daughter, Nicolette, came through the program a couple years back and now plays at Saint Martin’s University in Olympia.
After this season the only Nesbitt eligible to stay in the program will be Jeff, but his plans to hang it up have already been decided. Both Elle and Jeff will ride off into the sunset together.
“What has kept me in coaching as long as I did was my two children,” says Jeff. “It is so fun watching Nicolette being a very successful student/athlete at Saint Martin’s and becoming a confident adult and I can’t wait to watch Elle do the same. I’m excited to just be dad again.”
Last year’s team made the state semifinals, and there’s belief in Woodland, and most of all in the Nesbitt household, that can happen again in the final chapter of the era the family has built.
“When we’re playing at our best we’re really good,” says Elle.
