Luetzen finds a home with Polson volleyball

POLSON — Patty Luetzen moved to Montana to take a step back from volleyball, but the Polson assistant coach just couldn’t stay out of the gym.

For Luetzen, an English teacher at Polson who is also working on her Master’s degree in literacy education at the University of Montana, volleyball has been a way of life.

She played at Penn State under legendary coach Russ Rose in the 1980s. She coached in Minot, N.D. for years at two different high schools. Her daughter and son both play. So she applied for the open assistant’s position in Polson.

“It’s kind of funny,” Polson coach Jan Toth said. “We knew that there was an English teacher that applied with volleyball experience, but she didn’t put what kind of experience.”

So on a conference call interview with Toth and Athletic Director Scott Wilson, Luetzen casually mentioned that she’d played at Penn State. If Toth had been holding the phone, she would have dropped it.

But that’s just how Luetzen is.

“I don’t want to live in the past,” she’ll tell you. And she means it.

“I don’t think a lot of us really realized she played at Penn State until midway through the season,” Polson junior Sarah Rausch said. “…I was kind of like, ‘Wait what? How did she get here?’”

But taking an opportunity to assist Polson became a personal mission of sorts for Luetzen. Much like Toth and her daughter Jaiden, Polson’s setter, Luetzen coached her daughter (and setter) Danny throughout high school.

“Jan asked if I knew what it was like to coach my own kid, and I just chuckled,” Luetzen said. “Being able to be with Jan and her daughter and watching those two is kind of fun. … Both of them are much stronger personalities than my daughter and I.”

Jaiden, the daughter of two coaches—her father, Don, is an assistant with the Polson football team—had almost no choice but to grow up with a sense of history about the game. The words “Penn State” meant something to her where they may not have to many of the other players.

However, it’s not Luetzen’s background that stands out to the younger Toth.

“Coach Luetzen has a lot of compassion,” Jaiden said. “You can tell she’s a teacher because she draws out what you need to do.”

Rausch agreed.

“She’s just helped me to see volleyball in everyday terms,” Rausch said. “She’s very good at taking it down to a level I can understand.”

Luetzen sees herself as a quiet enforcer for Toth’s volleyball philosophy.

“I think I really back Jan up well,” she said. “She knows her stuff … so you have this other person saying, ‘Listen to her!’”

Luetzen has brought a fresh perspective into Toth’s program as well.

“Once you’ve had a program for as long as I have and the kids spend four years in the program, the kids start doing the same thing,” Toth said. “I constantly try to have new and better things, but the kids may stop buying into it.”

Luetzen’s expertise and experience have rekindled the Pirates’ fire.

“She knows how to get us ready,” Jaiden Toth said. “…It helps that she and my mom both have different experiences in coaching.”

Luetzen has found that the players help her as much as she’s helped them.

“I find that you feed energy off of kids,” she said. “That’s why I teach. But [volleyball] is physical energy.”

The Penn State grad finds herself preaching the same things Rose has emphasized during his legendary 35-year career with the Nittany Lions.

“His game philosophy hasn’t changed,” she said. “Number one: The ball never touches the floor without a player pursuing and going to the floor too. You don’t watch a ball drop. Number two: You just give 100 percent all the time. He taught you to be selfless.”

Luetzen and Toth plan to take their daughters to the NCAA Final Four in Seattle this December. The second-ranked Nittany Lions are playing like they’ll be there.

The postseason focus for now, though, in on the Pirates, who have looked much improved in the last few games of the season.

“I think they just are starting to really, really focus on what Patty’s teaching them,” Jan Toth said.

The Pirates will test that on Friday, when they open up the Northwest A divisional tournament with Libby.

Luetzen is just happy to impart the knowledge that she’s picked up over the years, and the players are right; she’s pretty good at boiling it down.

“It’s about learning to be a good player, taking care of each other, and performing on the spot, too,” Luetzen summarized. “That really is the reason that you keep coming back to the gym. You have these experiences, and you want them to be shared.”

Luetzen and the Pirates will begin their playoff push today at 11 a.m. against Libby.