'Kind of cool': Mother and daughter coaching colleagues deftly balance sports and family
Volleyball, then everything else.
“That’s probably what we talk most about, honestly,” Courtney Heffren said with a laugh.
Heffren and her mom, Tracy Heffren, have joined forces on the Illinois Central College volleyball team, celebrating their first Mother’s Day together as coaching colleagues.
The Heffren matriarch has been head coach at the East Peoria community college since 2019; her daughter joined the staff last fall as a volunteer assistant. The move was a no-brainer for the younger Heffren, whose plans are to stay with ICC for the 2024 season.
“I’ve always known that I’ve wanted to coach,” Courtney said, “and so it’s kind of been cool starting my coaching career with her on her sidelines.”
This isn’t the first time the Heffren pair have shared the volleyball court. Tracy coached Courtney at Eureka for four seasons, which included the 2016 Class 2A state championship.
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“The way that the season fell, we knew that we were able to do it and that we kind of pushed each other," Courtney said. “Obviously, it was really special with my mom because just sharing that bonding moment, it’s big when your family is there.
"But when your mom is on the sideline, that makes it even more special.”
The coach-player dynamic, though, never got in the way of their family relationship.
“I treated her just like any other player,” Tracy said, “and probably was even a little bit harder on her with the expectations (I had for her) because I knew what she could do.
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“We kind of left volleyball on the court, and didn’t really talk about it a whole lot once we got home, so it was kind of one of those things if she wanted to talk about it, we would but if not, it was mom and daughter at home.”
If four years together weren’t enough, Courtney headed to ICC and played for Tracy in her first year at the college ranks. It turned out to be a bit of a full circle moment as Tracy earned first-team all-American honors in 1987 for ICC.
Plus, Courtney being coached by her mom was all she ever knew.
“It was just kind of normal and nothing was out of the ordinary,” Courtney said, “I can’t really speak to it just because that’s just what I was used to for so long.”
Winning continued for the Heffren duo with a pair of NJCAA Division II national tournament appearances, highlighted by a fourth-place finish in the 2021 pandemic-adjusted spring season.
Courtney wrapped up her playing career with a year at Illinois State followed by a senior season with Illinois Wesleyan. Currently, she’s coaching club volleyball. Tracy sees a lot of herself in Courtney’s disposition on the bench.
“Just her calm demeanor on the sideline,” Tracy said. “Not too many highs, not too many lows, which to me, kind of helps the how excitable or unexcitable your players are on the court.”
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Tracy says now that she and Courtney are working together, they know each other’s mindsets, are constantly looking for ways to improve and bounce strategy off each other.
“Courtney gives good insight,” she said.
Adam Duvall is a Journal Star sports reporter. Email him at aduvall@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @AdamDuvall.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Mothers Day 2024: ICC volleyball coached by mother and daughter
