Texas Club Highlight: Austin Skyline – Vol 1 Intro
We are excited to write this article about a club in North Austin who is making a name for themselves in the Texas capitol city. Austin is full of great athletes, great coaches, and great clubs. This article series is…
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Continue ReadingWe are excited to write this article about a club in North Austin who is making a name for themselves in the Texas capitol city. Austin is full of great athletes, great coaches, and great clubs. This article series is focusing on one of those clubs, Austin Skyline. We are getting some great information on players from their social media accounts and watching them in person. If you are a college coach or even a prospective athlete, we recommend you follow their account @atxskylinejrs as they truly utilize social media well with college exposure for their players. We are going to do a few volumes on them. This first article is to introduce you to the club and the subsequent articles this week will be to introduce you to their athletes.
Prep Dig TX had a chance to visit their practice site and also sit down with Club Director Jenny Luke and her staff to get some background on how they have taken the Austin scene by storm in the last five years. Here is a little from our conversation.
Prep Dig TX: How long has Austin Skyline been a club?
Director Luke: We just finished our fifth year as a club.
Prep Dig TX: Can you give me some background as a coach/player/person in volleyball?
Director Luke: I just finished my fifth year as the club director for Austin Skyline. My year round club coaching experience began just over 20 years ago with Dallas Skyline serving as a coach and recruiting coordinator from 2004-2007. I left Dallas to move to Austin and joined AIM as the college recruiting director and a head coach until she helped a new club in the area form, Austin Performance. I served as a head coach and the recruiting coordinator for almost 10 years. During my career, I have qualified numerous teams to USA Volleyball Junior Nationals. In 2013, I helped lead my team to a first place finish at the Lone Star Qualifier and ended the season in a 5thplace finish at GJNC in the USA Division. Since we have opened Austin Skyline, we have qualified teams in the Open division and had a top 5 finish at Nationals. I have also been involved with USA High Performance programs as well as publishing several articles with USA Volleyball in regards to college recruiting. I currently live in the Cedar Park area with my husband, John Luke, and our four children, Cole, Hunter, Callie, and Hudson.
Prep Dig TX: What do you love about your program the most?
Director Luke: First and foremost, the people. We have some amazing human beings here at Austin Skyline who make this program a special place. We look at our position as one to help lead by example to young women. In 2019-2020, we created two programs: Leadership Council and Skyline Cares. Leading takes much preparation and we as a club designed a council that fosters a standard of excellence and level of expectations. In order to be considered to be a captain, you must apply for leadership council and go through the application and selection process. A few of the expectations for our captains/leadership council members are to set the emotional and mental tone for the club, while inspiring others to rise to the Skyline standards. Skyline Cares was created when Covid-19 hit our community to provide opportunities for our Austin Skyline Family to support our local communities while encouraging civic engagement and leadership amongst our athletes and families. Skyline Cares is designed to serve our community in a variety of ways to learn how to be a person who makes the world around us a better place.
Prep Dig TX: What is your coaching philosophy and how do you apply it to your teams?
Director Luke: Through my 20+ years of experience, I have learned from my failures. I am a strong believer that athletes and parents understand my beliefs in team rules, respect for teammates in their speech and expression, style of play, standards and expectations, as well as clear communication in their role for the team. I include parents in my philosophy at the club level because conversations that happen at home can make or break an athlete’s sense of identity and role for a club season. So, I strongly believe if we are on the same page, that I have a chance to really reach an individual athlete to be a great teammate. Clear communication, passion for the process, and genuinely caring for individuals tends to bring a team cohesive mindset that allows us to perform at our highest level. Lastly, I care. I truly care for people. I was raised to genuinely care for people as if they are my own family. It has steered me to a positive experience in my role as a director.
Prep Dig TX: We love to highlight athletes but are always willing to give kudos to the people that help make the athletes reach their potential. Are there any up and coming coaches or staff you would like to highlight from your club?
According to Jenny, some of their outstanding coaches are:
Joe Sunder – currently 14 Royal Head Coach. He brings a wealth of knowledge as a former player for the Penn State Volleyball team and the United States National Team from 2008-2015, and also a great overseas Professional Playing Career.
Rachael Sunder – currently 13 Royal Head Coach and Director of the Leadership Council. She is a very decorated volleyball player at the junior level as a club/high school player, College level as both a player and an assistant coach, and professionally oversees. We will be highlighting these awesome coaches more in another one of our articles of this series on Austin Skyline soon. Stay tuned to meet them in more detail.
This is just the first introductory article on the club. I will be posting articles on their players this coming week. The moment I walked into the Round Rock Sports Center gym I could feel that this club was special. When practice started Jenny and her staff had great command of their teams/players. I got a sense of full engagement from every athlete on their courts. As I interviewed both players and staff, everyone kept using the term family in their responses. I felt everything that the word “Family” embodies exude from them all.
I started with the 18’s court and it started with a whiteboard session with the players so that they knew what was going to happen. The drills then began and I watched as they practiced as if it was a game. Their drills were very game-like which helps with skill transfer for the athletes. Both Jenny and her 16 Royal head coach were running drills with separate positions like I have seen many college programs run their drills. The older players were getting two great coaches inserting volleyballs into the drills at a fantastic pace to keep the older athletes training hard. I loved what I was seeing from both the athletes and the coaches. Every player was thoroughly engaged in learning and hard work. The practices were extremely efficient and very well thought out by the coaching staff.
Then I made my way to the 17’s court with Jenny and Coach Don Flora. Mr. Flora is also the Head Volleyball Coach for Southwestern University. It was great to see these great athletes getting such tremendous coaching from a college coach already. I have known coach Flora for a long time as we have coached many college camps together at New Mexico State University. Once he got the Head Coaching position at Texas Tech, he recruited one of my setters and she ended up playing all four years of her career there for the Red Raiders. The practice was well run and all of the 17’s were also thoroughly engaged with everything being taught. When I interviewed the players they had nothing but great things to say about the club and the staff.
It was great to catch up with Jenny and get some information on her staff, athletes, and her program. We sat and talked and it felt like I knew her for years. She is a very genuinely caring individual and you can sense it from the moment you meet her. The things she describes in her philosophies are items that can be seen in her actions for sure as a director, coach, and as a person. The club is one of the newer clubs in the Austin area but they are definitely making a name for themselves. We are looking forward to covering them in this series of articles and also seeing them adding more amazing results on the court. Keep your eye out for Austin Skyline!!!
If you feel like you have a school or club that you think we should highlight, feel free to email me at nov8vb@yahoo.com. We would love to come out to your practices/clinics and get more information on your staff/athletes to help with our coverage.