By Grant Clark
There’s a large wall in the living room at Tana Otton’s house that is bare. No pictures, no shelves, just your run-of-the-mill structural elements – drywall covering insulation and 2 x 4 studs.
It’s not that Otton is opposed to dressing up the home’s negative space with the occasional wall art. Her options just became very limited once her daughter Kennedy Croft discovered volleyball.
“If she had no one to practice with she would use that wall,” Otton said. “It seemed like every day since she was a kid she would be passing the ball against the wall and see how many she could get in a row.”
Croft, who began playing the sport when she was eight, estimates she topped out at around 350 passes.
“I figure I will just have to wait until she leaves for college before I paint (the wall),” Otton added.
Otton really has no one to blame but herself for her daughter’s enthusiastic volleyball aspirations.
Despite hailing from a football family – Otton’s father Sid is the state’s all-time winningest high school football coach, while brothers Tim and Brad were each gridiron standouts in both high school and college – she has formed her own identity as one of the state’s premiere high school volleyball coaches.
Otton took over the Tumwater High School volleyball program in 2003 and has since transformed the Thunderbirds into a state powerhouse over the last decade. Under her guidance, the program, which failed to make a state tournament appearance between 1993 and 2005, has participated in state nine times since 2006, winning state crowns in 2009 and 2014. Otton’s teams have finished as state runner-ups in 2008, 2012 and 2013.
It only seemed fitting her daughter would immediately be attracted to the sport. That living room wall never stood a chance, destined to have a few thousand passes ricochet off of it.
“When I was in elementary school, I would always ride the bus (after school) to the high school just so I could watch them practice,” Croft said. “I would just be at practice, hanging out and watching. I remember when they won state (in 2009) and I got to ride with the team to Yakima. That was pretty memorable. I’ve just always dreamed of playing here.”
Croft, who is heading into her sophomore year, certainly made the most of her freshman campaign, helping the Thunderbirds capture the Class 2A state championship.
“After tryouts (last year) I was actually really nervous,” Croft remembers. “I thought people would think I only made the team because my mom was coach.”
As unlikely as this scenario might be, if anyone did think twice about Croft’s place on the team, watching the 5-foot-10 outside hitter play as she earned first-team all-Evergreen Conference 2A honors last year would wipe those doubts away.
And, the accolades didn’t stop there. The highlight of Croft’s rookie season was selection as one of five finalists for National Freshman of the Year by Prepvolleyball.com, an accomplishment Croft learned about through a chance internet search.
“I actually randomly Googled my name one day, and that’s how I found out I was a finalist,” Croft said. “I knew I was nominated, but that’s when I learned I was in the top five. It was unexpected. To be from tiny Tumwater and receive something like that – it really motivates me to work on my game and improve.”
Interestingly, it proved to be somewhat of a rough start last season for Croft, but not in terms of her play on the court, where she’s always been consistent. Instead, making the lofty transition to the high school sports routine, as well as adapting to the mother/coach relationship she faced on a daily basis, was an adjustment.
“I actually think I was too hard on her (the first year),” said Otton, a 1992 Tumwater graduate and an all-state volleyball player for the T-Birds her senior season. “It took a while for both of us to get adjusted to the coaching side of the relationship. She was also adjusting to being in high school, understanding what it’s like to have to practice every day after school. Halfway through the season, though, everything started to click.”
Croft wasn’t alone in hitting her stride mid-season. The entire squad seemed to follow suit. Tumwater, which hasn’t shied away from scheduling top-flight, larger school programs as non-league matches, went into cruise control, hammering teams along the way. The T-Birds ended the season with a straight-sets sweep of North Kitsap in the state championship match.
Tumwater has graduated Evergreen Conference MVP Mackenzie Bowen and first-team all-conference player Sarah Warner from last year’s state championship team but welcome back a slew of talent that contributed to the title run.
In addition to Croft, Otton expects big seasons out of seniors Anela Carins and Jaya Reed and junior Cristina Hegarty, a first-team selection last year. For 2015, the T-Birds look to become the first back-to-back 2A state champions since Pullman High School accomplished the feat in 2010 and 2011.
