CLEVELAND, Tenn. -- Andrea Hudson has a 625-223 record in 19 seasons as volleyball coach at Lee University, her alma mater, so she's had a lot of great players and great seasons.
This season was the best. A week ago today, her Lady Flames played in the NAIA final four after having never advanced past pool play in seven previous trips to the national tournament. Unseeded going in, they won their first five matches at Sioux City, Iowa -- the last one against third-ranked Northwestern College from nearby Orange City -- and later were surprised with the national Champions of Character award.
"It was a real emotional time for me," said Hudson, who also began Lee's softball program and coached that sport for six years. "It showed our girls got it -- not just about the volleyball but how you represent yourself all the time."
She and her husband and assistant coach, Kevin, have a rule that their players not sit or walk around competition arenas with cell phones, iPods or other devices that would "tune out" other people. And she challenged them at the beginning of this season to "stretch themselves and tell people thank you," she said.
Referees, other officials and members of the tournament committee vote on the character award.
"Our girls were shocked when our name was called," Andrea Hudson said, "because they hadn't been any different than usual. I was so proud of them."
There have been years when Lee arguably was the best NAIA team east of the Mississippi River -- and several years when the Cleveland school and Georgetown (Ky.) College battled for that distinction. Last Saturday they met in the national semifinals, where Georgetown avenged a pool-play loss -- only its second defeat of the season.
Fresno (Calif.) Pacific then won its third national title in a row, but in 2007 and '08 all the semifinalists were California teams. The Plains States also have been strong through the years.
"For a change, we were one of the bigger teams at nationals," Hudson said. "And one of the things I heard said about us was that we didn't have just one go-to player. I felt at the first of the season that, player for player, this was the most well-rounded team we've ever had."
The Lady Flames did have a leader in third-team All-American and all-tournament player Milica Krsmanovic, a 6-foot senior who came to Lee as a setter and regularly got a rotation as a setter despite the presence of dual assists stars Gretchen Higdon and Kelsey Leffew.
"That threw teams off," Hudson said. "And Milica was a powerful, powerful player at the net."
But producing big kills performances through the season were Stephanie Todd, Kayla Carlisle, Christa Hutchison, Jacky Toruno and Vedrana Krsmanovic, and Todd joined libero Sara Smith and the setters in making a lot of digs.
Starting off the tournament with a pool win over ranked and three-time national champion Columbia (Mo.) spurred the Lady Flames to their win over Georgetown. Hudson credited her husband -- their 11th anniversary is today -- with preparing the Lee players to disrupt those teams' similar styles.
They have worked together the last 18 years, and Andrea is fond of saying that she has 19 wins and the rest "belong to both of us."
Matt Yelton, who just directed the Lee women's soccer team to its second consecutive NAIA championship, praised the standards the Hudsons helped establish in the school's athletic program.
"I have tremendous amount of respect for what Andrea and Kevin put together year in and year out," Yelton said. "They have stood the test of time with their success, and they do it the right way."
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