Welcome, team!

My name is Thalia, but my athletes/colleagues call me “Coach T”.

I’m a 26 year old woman with a passion for volleyball, and writing!

My origin story starts back in 2013 when I was first introduced to volleyball my freshman year of high school. After playing four years as a starting setter, I became an assistant coach for my high school team in 2016.

Fast forward to 2024, I’m the head coach for a local high school volleyball program . I have the privilege of coaching the girl’s varsity in the fall, and created a boys varsity team in spring of 2023.

In recent years volleyball popularity has been on the rise (finally!). I noticed young athletes and aspiring coaches spark interest in joining the volleyball community, and quickly recalled how I felt in 2013 as a newbie to the volleyball world.

When I first became the head coach of my program, I had 5 years of assistant coaching experience. However, I still found myself sometimes googling drill ideas, and noticed there were few options to learn from online. Maybe a few specific setting/hitting etc drills, but not an array of options you’d find for more “mainstream” sports (like soccer, or football). I wanted to fill that gap by sharing the irreplaceable skills I learned through being an assistant coach and now head coach…

thus the birth of defyinggravityvolleyball.com in January of 2024!

Without my mentors I wouldn’t be at this point in my coaching career. I hope my blog posts can assist aspiring + current coaches in practice plans, game statistics, team management/leadership, and the important job of mentoring youth through sports. I also hope to help aspiring + current volleyball athletes who are looking for more learning opportunities from a high school coach’s perspective (something I did a lot back in 2013-2016!).

If interested, viewing blog posts, full videos, and content is free! We have a youtube channel, tiktok, and instagram as well!

Thank you for being here, I hope you feel inspired and welcomed. This sport is my life, and I hope it can become a part of yours too :)

-Coach T.