Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
Celia Powers was like the rest of the holdovers on the Wright State volleyball team two years ago when Allie Matters was hired as coach — hopeful, but wary.
The Raiders were coming off an 11-18 season and missed qualifying for the Horizon League tournament for the 10th straight year. The players may have sensed there was talent in the program, but they’d become accustomed to losing and saw no reason to believe that would change.
Until meeting Matters, that is.
“I remember thinking, when is this new coach going to come in? How are we going to react to her? And when she came in, she knew all of our names. She knew what position we played, what club we came from and everything about us. It made us a lot more comfortable with her,” Powers said.
“She wanted us not only to get better as a volleyball team, but as people, too. We could tell she cared about us.”
Matters wasn’t just trying to make a good first impression. The former Seton Hall assistant — who starred for the Pirates from 2006-09 — has been consistent about reaching out to her players, often hosting them for team meals and inviting them individually to her office just to chat.
