It’s still pitch black outside when varsity volleyball and lacrosse assistant coach Quinn Holland wakes up to the sound of her alarm. The clock reads 3:00 am as she quickly packs her bag for work, stuffing in a variety of Menlo athletic merchandise and a bright green apron. By 3:45 am, she’ll be on her way to Starbucks with three free espresso shots and a seven hour shift waiting for her. Holland won’t be home till 10:30 pm.
Many coaches at Menlo don’t just coach. Several work with local club teams and give private lessons, while others may also pick up shifts at a coffee shop, coach at a local college or teach. Although it can be difficult for coaches to manage several jobs, they emphasize the importance of staying organized and how their players energize them.
“I’ve been working at coffee shops since I graduated college in 2021,” Holland said. After her Starbucks shift, Holland drives to Menlo to coach middle school P.E., followed by high school volleyball or lacrosse and then coaching at both boys and girls at Red Rock Volleyball Club.
Holland coaches volleyball in the fall and girls lacrosse in the spring, meaning she coaches after-school sports for the Upper School during two seasons. When volleyball has a game, Holland leaves Menlo with the freshman team after school but doesn’t come back with varsity until around 8:30-9 p.m. “And if I don’t have a game, then we have practice right after school,” she said. “And then from practice, I go straight to private lessons until 7:45 and then from 7:45 to 9:45 have practice for the club teams.”
On a good day, Holland goes to sleep at 11:30 p.m. With a 3:15 a.m. wakeup, Holland needs lots of caffeine. “It’s really hard to get up in the middle of the night,” Holland said. “Usually in a [Starbucks] shift, I’ll only have one coffee drink and then one tea.”
Holland thanks her players for providing her energy since she doesn’t get much sleep. “[The students] provide a lot of my energy like when [they] are energetic, I can feed off of that energy but when [they] are tired then I’m definitely tired,” she said. “Some days are better than others.”
JV girls soccer head coach Mert Ergene coaches at Stanford Strikers FC and the women’s soccer team at Foothill College. Ergene views club, high school and college soccer as three different periods. “Club is kind of the beginning, high school is the decision-making period and college is if you want to keep on playing,” Ergene said. “Club is technically a little bit more serious. A lot of effort and money are involved too from the players,” he said. “For the JV team, I’m not super strict. I try to keep it fun but at the same time try to keep it competitive.”
Volleyball and middle school PE coach Della Trimble is currently getting her graduate school teaching credential in education at Notre Dame de Namur University and will be teaching at Hillsdale High School in the spring semester. Currently, she works for Mountain View Volleyball Club’s beach volleyball program and observes classes at Hillsdale High School.
Trimble’s day also starts early. “Observing at Hillsdale High School starts at 7:30 a.m., so I wake up at 6:30 a.m., where I work 0, 1st, and 2nd period,” she said. “I then go straight to Menlo to coach middle school PE from 12:30-3:15 p.m.” After that, similar to Holland, she coaches high school volleyball for approximately two hours. “After work is done, I drive to school at NDNU where class goes from 7:15-9:45 p.m.,” she said. Finally, Trimble tries to work out after her class for about an hour from 10-11 p.m. before going to bed.
In order to manage several jobs, the coaches prioritize staying on top of their schedules to avoid conflicts. Ergene cites being organized, planning practices and communicating with players, parents, coaches and the school athletic department as vital to his success as a coach.
Trimble agrees with Ergene’s sentiment. “Being organized is very important to me,” Trimble said. “I played collegiate volleyball so having a schedule and being organized was a must for me.”
While these coaches all have a variety of jobs, there are often similarities between each of their jobs. “All of the jobs I have are hands-on,” Holland said. “I’m not sitting on a computer or in an office where I can multitask.” Additionally, Holland notes how all of her jobs are, in a way, customer service jobs because they all involve paying for a certain service with an expected outcome.
Like Holland, Trimble constantly works with other individuals in her jobs. “All my jobs allow me to work with and support students and athletes,” she said. “Whether it’s teaching math or coaching volleyball, we are role models for the students and it is our job to teach and coach them life skills they can use in the future.”
Ergene enjoys coaching more than other jobs he has had. Meeting new people, teaching the game he himself played for a long time and social interactions are some of the reasons why he loves coaching so much. “From 6 to 7-year-olds all the way to 30-year-olds, you can always learn different things,” Ergene said. “To have a very enjoying and fun environment that you can call a job is the important thing.”
Ergene emphasizes the importance of finding a job one enjoys. “You don’t want to dread for Mondays or look for a Friday,” he said. “You want to do it seven days a week.” He encourages Menlo student-athletes to coach younger kids since he has enjoyed coaching so much. “Hopefully I will [coach] for another 10-12 years.”
