Beth Coblentz- A pioneer in women’s volleyball
TLSN Chairwoman Beth Coblenz is a high school pioneer, a national champion in volleyball, and a proven winner in leadership roles in business.
Beth’s Oral history is below, with text and photos added to tell her story.
https://texas-lsn.squarespace.com/beth-coblentz-oralhistory-volleyball
Sponsored by MBFC. Contact John Carsey at jcarsey@mbfc.com
Beth’s oral history captures the formative years of Title IX. When college women’s scholarship offers changed the landscape of college women’s sports forever. Beth was a great volleyball player and a great business leader, reaching the executive level in the corporate business world.
Beth says:
I grew up in Boca Raton, Florida, the youngest of 4 kids( 1 boy and 3 girls), with parents that were both athletes. My father played on the White Soxs minor leaque team as a pitcher, my mother was ahead of her time. She got finish her undergraduate degree after having 4 kids and working full time, then went on to get her Master’s Degree. She was an Athletic Director at Henderson University School and an Adjunct Professor for Florida Atlantic University.
When I was growing up I was outside playing football, horse, riding dirt bikes, with the boys in the neighborhood. I loved it. None of my girlfriends like to get dirty so it was just me and the boys. I played every sport that was offered in elementary/middle school, was a cheerleader, ran faster than anyone in our school except for Donnie Reed….sometimes. Started playing tennis at 4 years old and played through 10th grade when I got sick of it. I started out at Boca High School and transferred to Cardinal Gibbons High School in the middle of my Sophomore year. Gibbons had a great Volleyball program, but I wasn’t interested in it. I ran track from Sophomore year, played Softball my Junior year, and went to a Volleyball camp the summer before my senior year. I fell in the love with the sport and spent the rest of the summer playing every day on my own with one or two volleyball players from Gibbons. We made up drills, ran drills that we learned at camp, ran sprints, just everything we could all day every day the whole summer. I tried out for the Volleyball team that August made it, ended up subbing in for a started mid-way through the first match of our season, and started every game afterward. We went 31-0, won the State Championship (the number 10 or more for the coaches), and received the MVP Player of the Year for the State of Florida in Volleyball, All-State Awards from Miami Herald Paper, Sun Sentinel Paper, Play of the Year for one of the papers(I think it was the Miami Herald), Play of the Week many times for both papers. My coaches, Louise Crocco and Jude Abrams were extraordinary coaches that brought many times to the State Champion tournament and walked away 18 times as the Champions. Coach Louise Crocco was inducted into the High School Hall of Fame in 2008 and is the winningest High School coach in History for the State of Florida.
1981 National Volleyball Champions
Once my senior year of volleyball was over I had several scholarship offers. Growing up we went to NC all the time, I loved it, so my heart was set on a NC or SC college. With that my mother and I drove to many of those schools over several months meeting with coaches, looking at school, etc. I accepted a full scholarship from the University of South Carolina for Volleyball. I was young, 17 until mid-November, and naïve, did not really understand what it meant for the Volleyball coach was also the Softball coach too, with her background in Softball. So, it did not take me long after the season started to realize she was in way over her head. She recruited top athletes but did not know what to do with them. We had a below 500 record and I was homesick. I struggled so much that year that I did not think I gave it a fair shot, so I went back for my Sophomore year. Once we started practicing I knew immediately that my initial thoughts were right, USC was not the right place for me. After the season was over I told the coach I was transferring and started looking for coaches. My thoughts were if I focus on the top 3 coaches in the country the school has to be good. So, that is what I did. I sent letters to UCLA, USC, and the University of Texas (Mick Haley). Mick called me, talked to me, gave me a workout program, and said come see me at the end of the school year. I worked that workout every day until I met with him in Austin that May. It was very much like a job interview, which I wasn’t used to, the conversation went both ways, and Mick asked me to join the team. I accepted. I fly home to Boca Raton, Florida, packed my bags, and moved to Austin for the summer. We trained twice a day for Junior Nationals and Junior Olympics. Women’s sports were under AIAW at that time, not NCAA. I had a choice to make. I could give my scholarship up and play or keep my scholarship and redshirt. I had no intentions of red-shirting I wanted to play. So, I gave up my scholarship for a year, got it back my Senior year, and then into my fifth year to finish my Accounting degree. At that time, Donna Lopiano was the Women’s Athletic Director and Chris Plonsky was the Women’s Information Director.
1982 Longhorn volleyball team – Beth is #4
Transitioning to playing for Mick Haley from the coach at USC was a process but believe me a welcomed one. He was intense, tough, determined, worked us hard, challenged us in every way. He would put obstacles in our way to force us to learn how to overcome them. He was a master of the game and was there to win a National Championship and did everything in his power to make that happen. We traveled back and forth from Texas to California 4 times that season, plus to many other states, Nebraska, Chicago, etc. we played 67 matches that season, now they play around 26 a season. He wanted to put Texas on the map for Volleyball and our team helped Mick/UT do that. We had a strong team with an amazing leader in Sally Schlobohm Tan. She is 5’ 7” tall and an incredible setter, smart, and a fighter! She played for Mick Haley at Kellogg Community College with another one of our teammates Jenny Hayes, they were a lethal combination. We had the great Nell Fortner on our team as well. Talk about an amazing athlete, a coach, a mentor, Olympic Coach for Women’s Basketball.
Beth Coblentz
After College I went on to work for JB Goodwin in Real Estate assisting the property manager, and then one of the Goodwin brothers. My UT teammate Katrina Dorseifer ended up coming to work for JB Goodwin, I was able to work with her for a year. After I year I went on to work for a CPA firm. Did not love it, got fired, and went on try to find my way. I worked in Sales, then as an assistant manager at El Arroyo, then owned by Clay McPhail and Doug English(former UT Football Player). It was through that job that I met someone that worked for Reebok. I went and did the Hotter Than Hell 100 mile bike ride with him and some other Reebok employees that summer. Made some friends and ended up moving to Dallas to work for a Head Rep for Reebok as a Promotions and Advertising Manager for a 5 state area. Did that for 1 ½ years and then got into the sales side for them and moved to Houston. I was fortunate to get promoted within the company and working in Houston. I had moved up to work with bigger accounts. Academy Sports and Outdoors was one of them, Oshman’s Sporting Goods, Dillards, several others. Eventually, I went to work for Nike as an Account Executive out of the Houston office working with the top accounts based out of Houston. It was a great company but not one I would stay at for long.
After a couple of years, Academy offered me a Vice President’s position in the company’s Footwear Division. After a year, I was promoted to Executive Vice President. I was able to build my team and our business. I looked at everyone that joined us as part of our team. I did not want them to join us if they weren’t a team player. I made that clear in every interview and lived and died by that motto. Then I had a full circle moment when I was fortunate enough to work with UT again and Chris Plonsky with our licensed business that Academy had with UT. Team Sports have helped build the person I am today through the activity, the coaches, my teammates, the good times, the bad times, and the uncertain times. I stayed with Academy for 13 years, helping grow the business from $ 500 million to $3.1 billion. I was Executive Vice President and General Merchandise Manager over the Footwear and Apparel Business until 2010, when Academy was sold to KKR.
I have spent the last 10 years raising my children. My son was 2 and my daughter was almost 8 when I left Academy. I have been a single parent for 18 years. After I divorced my ex-husband, 3 years later I decided to adopt, my daughter was born in Florida, and almost 6 years later so was my son. Now my daughter is a senior in High School and my son is in sixth grade. I have spent the last 2 years in Residential Real Estate. I started investing in properties 12 years ago. Now, I have the pleasure of helping clients buy and sell homes, investments, vacation properties, whatever they need. I have enjoyed growing this business and look forward to many more years of it. I do stay in touch with my longhorn teammates. I have made lifelong friends with some of them and plan to keep it that way!
