Rogers High Athletic Hall Of Fame
WHEN: Saturday, May 4 6 p.m.
WHERE: Rogers High Commons Area
TICKETS: $10 at Rogers High and Best Sports
RHS Grad Gooch Picked For Hall Of Fame
By Paul Nielsen
ROGERS — Dianne Gooch knew taking the helm of the Rogers High volleyball program would be no easy task. But then again, Gooch had overcome obstacles before.
Gooch graduated from Rogers in an era that didn’t have school-sanctioned volleyball and girls basketball was just starting to take hold, but that didn’t stop her from earning a volleyball scholarship to Henderson State. When she returned home and eventually became the Lady Mounties volleyball coach, Gooch inherited a program that was one of the few teams in the area without a junior high program.
But Gooch turned Rogers into a competitive force in what is now the 7A/6A-West Conference over the next 15 years before retiring from coaching in 2002. Gooch was also an assistant track and basketball coach at Rogers.
For her contributions, Gooch has been selected to enter the Rogers High Athletic Hall of Fame. Gooch will join Harold Callaway, Herman Wilkinson and Shara Sherman at an induction ceremony May 4 at the school.
Gooch said she and assistant coach Debbie Wingert enjoyed teaching the fundamentals to there players, despite the fact that they were being exposed to volleyball for the first time as sophomores.
“We were playing teams that had junior high ball, it was tough,” Gooch said. “We were always playing catchup, but we were always competitive. I remember one year we had 90 kids come out, but we would keep a lot. Debbie was my assistant for the whole time and she was a great help.”
Jolene Smith played volleyball for Gooch for three seasons in the mid 1990s and later went on to coach high school volleyball in Texas and Missouri. Smith said she used many of Gooch’s coaching techniques with her teams.
“Coach Gooch had a tremendous work ethic and she knew how to treat players,” Smith said. “I liked how she ran her practices. They were upbeat. We had to catch up with the other teams most of the time and I realize now how much time she had to put in to make us successful.”
Gooch graduated from Rogers in 1976 and volleyball was not yet a sanctioned sport. Basketball was more an intramural sport in Rogers as the effects of Title IX kicked in during the late 1970s. Thus, opportunities were limited as Rogers had trouble finding games in both sports.
“We played against some small schools, and we got to play in the Benton County Tournament, Gooch said. “That was about it. We didn’t have it as a AAA sport yet.”
Gooch then went on to play basketball and volleyball at Henderson State but a knee injury in the first game all but ended her basketball career.
Gooch was behind the other HSU players in volleyball but she put in extra work and earned a scholarship for her final two seasons in Arkadelphia.
“I had to catch up because everybody else on the team had played a lot of volleyball in high school,” Gooch said. “I just went to the gym a lot and worked at it. There were five freshmen on the team, and we were all pretty close, and they would go in the gym and hit with me.
“Volleyball was easy to pick up for me.”
Gooch stayed at HSU as a graduate assistant for a year and then went to Camden for three years before coming back home to teach at Elmwood Junior High. Gooch then took over the Lady Mounties volleyball program in 1987, where she led the program for 15 years.