After 31 years of mentoring players, varsity volleyball coach Susan Dean has been selected for the Missouri High School Volleyball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

“Our organization has been around for a long time, and every couple of years they have an induction. Right now there are a total 18 coaches in the state, that over the years of the association that have been inducted,” Dean said. “ I feel tremendously honored by that, and a little shocked personally, but it a really nice honor.”

Having originally coached at Parkway Central high school, Dean moved to West and has been coaching the Longhorns for 13 years

“The president of the organization called me last Friday to let me know I was being inducted, I know the Lafayette coach, Zach Young, nominated me,” Dean said. “[The organization] researches your background and what you have contributed to the sport over the years. It’s not really about wins and loses, I think they look at the impact that you have in the sport over the years, and that’s how they decide whether you will be inducted.”

After announcing her retirement from coaching, Dean shared her final season with her team in which they qualified for the sectional volleyball tournament for the first time since 2011.

“She gives a 100 percent in everything she does, not only in the coaching relationships of volleyball but in the relationship with every athlete that she has, she genuinely cares about every single player and she will run through walls for athletes and her students. She is so dedicated and she knows what she’s doing,” senior and varsity volleyball player Jamie Poppen said. “I was just so happy for her, she deserves it more than any coach I know and there aren’t words for me to explain how great she is as a person, as a coach as a teacher, as a mentor.”

Despite her decision to retire from coaching, Dean remains undecided about leaving her role as math teacher and athletic supervisor.  

“I don’t know what I’m going to do without her,” Athletic Director Brian Kessler said. “She means a lot to me, she means a lot to this office, she means a lot to this school. She runs a model program, everybody in the school loves her, anywhere you go they talk about how phenomenal she is with kids, what she means to kids. So I think it is only fitting, if there was a leader, or person or mentor for a child you would want it to be her. If my kids could play for any coach in the world, I would want it to be her.”

With her connection and love for the team, program and school, Dean considers her nomination as a result of years of committed students and coaches.

“I think it’s really a culmination of 31 years of outstanding kids and assistant coaches with whom I work, and great athletic directors and support staff that really help make my job easier in terms of really creating a tradition of excellence,” Dean said. “In particular, I think there is just something special about being a volleyball player at West. I hope people feel that way, and I think it’s those kids and coaches who have been bought into that philosophy and have lived it forever, I think that’s what the hall of fame is all about. The first comment I made to coach Suz [Anderson] was this just speaks to our program, our kids and our coaches.”