First-year volleyball coach Rima brings levels of experience to Lady Colonel program

There are numerous levels of college volleyball and Jonea Rima has pretty much coached in just about all of them.

Rima just embark on her first season at Nicholls, making her head coaching debut on the Division I level as the new women’s volleyball coach of the Lady Colonels. Along with being the indoor volleyball coach, she also will guide the school’s beach volleyball team.

Prior to Nicholls, she served as a head coach on the junior college and NAIA levels. She also had a one-year stint as an assistant coach on the Division I level at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

Each level presents its own challenges, but going after talent, Rima said, is universal.

“I think some of it is just who you know, what relationships you’ve built along the way that will obviously help you in recruiting in general,” said Rima. “I think a lot of it’s just time spent going and finding the right kids and grinding it out.

“I think junior college is a little bit easier with just the rules. There’s not as many rules as some of the other levels. Obviously, we’re working with a lot of rules here (on the Division I level at Nicholls), so that’s going to be different with just kids with GPAs and different things and SAT scores kind of thing. I think a lot of it’s the same kind of process. You are just looking for a better kid for a higher level.”

Rima’s initial head coaching experience came on the NAIA level when she served as the women’s head volleyball coach and men’s assistant coach at Missouri Valley College. She was in her early 20s when she was hired in 2003.

“It was definitely a great opportunity, especially as young as I was trying to get my feet in the door. I learned a lot about paperwork,” she laughed while pointing to a stack of papers on her office desk, “but had the opportunity to really just kind of dive right in and get a lot of experience right away.”

With few volleyball program’s for men, Missouri Valley had the pick of a number of quality men’s athletes that a NAIA school normally might not be able to recruit. Missouri Valley built a Top 10 men’s program. Rima took advantage of a very good men’s program to help prepare her women’s team.

“You just are able to kind of recruit a little bit better (on the men’s side) and just be able to have that higher level against your own girls teams. We always had a lot of the guys come in and practice and prepare us for the matches,” Rima said.

It helped her produce a record of 16-16 as a rookie coach and a 14-17 season before Rima moved on to Clarendon College in Texas and her first head coaching position on the junior college level.

“It was definitely a good starting spot as well,” Rima said of the West Texas school.

Rima found herself with a rebuilding job on her hands coaching the Clarendon women.

“They’d had some success years before. I think they’d had some 20-plus win seasons,” Rima recalled. “When the coach left, he left to take a D-II job and start a program a lot of those kids were actually sophomores the previous year, so we were rebuilding the first year.

“I think it was maybe 10 or 15 wins and then we finished up with, I believe, 25-plus the last year, so it continues to grow. We were getting votes for the Top 20 in the nation by the time I left.”

After three years at Clarendon, Rima moved on to the head women’s job at Sheridan College in Wyoming, another junior college program.

“I kind of jumped at the chance to go to Wyoming,” Rima said. “It was a little bit better scholarship money for the players in general. The West Coast had a little bit more opportunities and just scholarships in general for your athletes.

“So we were able to pull a little bit more kids from the California area to Utah to Hawaii. Just that kind of the West Coast international kids, we were able to kind of fund, which we weren’t really in that position at Clarendon.”

Rima already had become accustomed to recruiting international players but was able to pursue more at Sheridan College.

“I think I had one or two every year at Clarendon, but we were able to fulfill the three. At that time, you could only have three international kids on a junior college setting,” she said.

With the University of Wyoming being the only four-year school in the state, it put Sheridan College and other junior colleges in the state on an equal footing.

“We were all in the same league. We kind of competed against each other, looking at the same kids left and right,” said Rima.

The nature of two-year junior colleges, Rima said, means you are either building or rebuilding.

“Junior college, it waves. So you have kids, the rebuilding year, and then you have a good year and you kind of rebuild because it kind of recycles fast in the two years. We were more of a rebuilding year when I got there and probably mid-conference. When I left, I think we were 25-12 the last year,” said Rima.

Rima’s next stop was not at a NAIA or junior college school. It was not even in the country.

“I had a friend that was wanting the job in Barbados and called me and wanted to know what I knew about it because I always have Barbados kids play for me like at the JC level, so I made some phone calls,” Rima remembered.

“Kind of jokingly,” she continued, “I said I should apply because I love the area, love the people and they ended up hiring me. So, I went down there, and I was technical director there for two-and-a-half years and working more oversight for all the national programs – your youth, your junior, your senior teams on the men’s and women’s and then beach (volleyball) as well.”

Rima said she was there for talent recognition as well.

“I went into a lot of the schools, and I was going into the primaries, secondary classes and kind of doing intro to volleyball-type classes, just trying to get kids excited about it and try to feed them into the junior and youth programs,” explained Rima, who developed future national team players for the island nation.

After her stint in Barbados, Rima returned to the junior college ranks as head women’s volleyball coach at Seminole State College in Oklahoma.

“I wasn’t really sure what direction I wanted to go. I had requested to actually stay in Barbados, and they just didn’t have the funding,” Rima recounted. “It was a non-profit position, and they’ve actually still never really replaced it to this day, unfortunately.

“I came back not knowing kind of what level I wanted to go to and coming in kind of later after kind of some of the transitions with the colleges and friend of a friend kind of sent me in that direction. I’m originally from Southwest Missouri, so Seminole was probably four or five hours from my hometown.”

Rima spent two productive years at Seminole State, including a 29-12 season her last year in 2015.

“We didn’t actually have a conference in Oklahoma because a lot of the funding, they kind of cut some of the programs for volleyball. We had actually played in Region I in Arizona, played Eastern Arizona and won for the district wise and then played Yavapai (College) and lost, I think, in three or four sets to Yavapai, but Yavapai went to nationals, so we were kind of runner-up of that region.

Rima gained a year of Division I experience, serving as an assistant coach under Toby Rens at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

“Toby did a great job with recruiting and had everything kind of laid out in front of us,” Rima recalled. “I know we finished in the top half because at that time the MEAC was split. Because we had a conference that was split between, like the North and the South, and I believe we were second on our side in the top tier, if I remember correctly.

“We had a great group of kids. That year, we were first in the nation with service aces as a team with the NCAA with that group as well.”

Rima returned to her roots a year later at Midway University in Kentucky, again coaching both the women’s and men’s programs at a NAIA school.

“I was probably more excited about starting the men’s program just because that was an emerging sport. It still is an emerging sport,” Rima said. “We started out the program at Midway and then basically, in essence, we kind of restarted the women’s as well.

“Women’s (volleyball) was already there, had been there for years. It was just not in a great place. The first two years we were voted last in the conference. When I left this past season, we were second in the conference. The last two year, we made it to nationals.”

Now, she has made it to Thibodaux with her first Division I head coaching job.

“I’m definitely excited about being here. I was ready for a change, and I guess, a new challenge in a sense, too,” the new Nicholls coach said. “I think we have some great resources here. It’s just we’re going to be a young team this year, for sure.

“I think that we do have a lot of talent coming in and I think it’s just getting everyone on the same page, and really wanting to build this program.”

Rima is familiar with the Nicholls program. A graduate of Hendrix College in Arkansas, she earned her master’s degree from Louisiana-Monroe (then called Northeast Louisiana). While she was in Monroe, both schools’ volleyball programs competed in the Southland Conference.

 “I remember in grad school, they (the Lady Colonels) were kind of the team to beat, and they’ve had a lot of success down here. It’s just in the past few years, it’s looked like they’re close to getting there, and hopefully, we can kind of push them forward.”

The Nicholls coach said she knows what type of players she wants to move forward with.

“I hate to lose, so I’m going to do everything in my power to get it to the right spot,” said Rima. “I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep. I’m looking for that kid that’s ready to make a difference.

“My bigquestion when I’m asking the recruits is, ‘do you like to win, or do you hate to lose?’  I’m looking for that kid that just hates to lose, that wants to do anything and everything possible.”