Volleyball: Former standouts return to coach at alma maters

The names have changed - slightly - but Angela Lujan and Irma Hernandez are back at their old stomping grounds.

It has been a little more than a decade since they were two of the best high school volleyball players in the Permian Basin, and those talents took them far away to play at the collegiate level.

But there was no place like home.

Hernandez found her way back to Kermit, and Lujan returned to Fort Stockton.

They both are first-year head volleyball coaches at their alma maters, and even if that wasn't necessarily the immediate plan for either, the situation is positive for both.

"I've always wanted to be the head coach here," said Hernandez, a 1996 Kermit graduate whose team is playing this weekend in the Best of the West Classic in Wink. "It is a dream job for me because it's my hometown. I've always wanted to make a difference in Kermit. I love Kermit, and my family's here, so that made it an easier decision to come back."

As Irma Cobos, she led Kermit to the Region I-3A Tournament semifinals as an outside hitter in 1995 before going on to a four-year career at Eastern New Mexico.

The NCAA Division II school in Portales, N.M., competed with the best of the NCAA Division II Lone Star Conference during her playing time, an era during which nearby West Texas A&M won the national title once (1997) and reached the national semifinals once (1999).

Lujan, the former Angela Granado, is a 1997 Fort Stockton graduate and went off to another LSC school - Texas A&M-Kingsville - for her college years.

At Kingsville, the setter-hitter played for Donna Benotti, who since has returned to high school coaching and was the Texas Girls Coaches Association Coach of the Year in 2007 for Houston Cypress-Fairbanks.

"I loved volleyball, and I sent out 45 letters and went where I could go play," said Lujan, whose team is playing this weekend in the 35th Annual Monahans Volleyball Tournament. "I learned a lot, and Coach Benotti is where I learned a lot. She was a really good coach, and it was a great experience."

Lujan graduated from Kingsville in 2001 and was a subvarsity coach for three years at Hays Consolidated before heading home to Fort Stockton.

She primarily has worked as an elementary school teacher, though she did coach volleyball at the junior varsity level in her first year back and golf last year.

Though becoming head volleyball coach was a goal, Lujan - a mother of two who is pregnant and expecting in January - didn't think it would happen anytime soon.

But former Fort Stockton head coach Revis Daggett resigned right around the time the school year ended, and Lujan went for the position.

"I thought I'd be doing family for a while, but I just couldn't pass this up," Lujan said. "It's too exciting. It's awesome because my mom's a teacher here, my brother's a senior, my sister's a sophomore, and now I'm here. It's just one more thing to do as a family.
"I knew one day I wanted to do this, but it was just an opportunity that came at the moment, and I took it."

Lujan's brother, Joe-Daniel Granado, is a senior wide receiver for the Fort Stockton's football team. Her younger sister, Alaina, is a sophomore on the Prowlers volleyball team.

Like Lujan, Hernandez said ending her volleyball career after high school was never really an option.

"First, I know I wanted to go to college for my education," Hernandez said. "That was No. 1. In order to pay for it, because we were not rich, I knew I'd have to get a scholarship. I actually got both academic and volleyball scholarships, and getting to play volleyball was the icing on the cake for me.

"Plus, I wanted to see how good I was. In college, you get to see how good you really are because there's a lot of excellent athletes. It was a wonderful experience, and I would tell anybody to do it."

After finishing at Eastern, Hernandez attended graduate school to work on her master's in education and because a subvarsity coach at Hobbs High in New Mexico.

She returned to Kermit last season as the junior varsity coach in volleyball and softball, and she accepted the head coaching job for volleyball when former coach Dee Molinar left for a subvarsity job in Pecos.

Both first-year head coaches were pleasantly surprised with an overflow number of players who came out the start of workouts. The next step is taking that enthusiasm and making a difference on the court.

"That's what I'm here to do, to try to rebuild this into a good program so everyone in Kermit can see the best of these girls," Hernandez said. "We've got potential, but it's the hard work you put into it and you've always got to be prepared."