It was a quick trip back home, but Emily Staples wouldn’t have missed it for anything.
The San Francisco resident was not alone.
Such is the pull of Jennie Kull, the girls volleyball coach at St. Charles East since 1997. She will retire following this season.
“I’m here for 48 hours, but it’s worth every minute to be in her presence,” Staples said. “She had that kind of impact on me.”
Kull’s teams have won 18 regional titles, nine sectional titles and two state championships in five trips to the finals. Her influence goes well beyond that, however.
A 2007 graduate, Staples was among 35 former players on hand Wednesday for Kull’s final regular-season home match, a 25-22, 25-18 win over Downers Grove North.
It was followed by a retirement ceremony organized by her daughters, Katie and Morgan, who both played for their mother.
“There’s like this web of players and friends that can’t leave Jennie Kull to distance that force,” Staples said.
Lauren Harks Thomsen, who led Kull’s 1998 state qualifier with 203 kills as a sophomore and went on to play at Illinois, drove in from Iowa. She and her husband and six children live just outside Iowa City.
“She was that coach for me, the one you always hear about who you could always go to, and she was that for me,” Thomsen said of Kull. “It’s just a special memory — all the wonderful things she did with us and for us.”
Dani Nyenhuis Phillips also flew in. Nyenhuis Phillips, Thomsen’s former teammate, later led the 2001 team to the first of two state titles in Kull’s tenure with 305 kills before playing at North Carolina.
Phillips lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of McKinney, Texas, with her husband and three children.
“We come back almost every summer to visit and stay in touch,” Phillips said. “It’s pretty cool to be this old myself and be able to say my coach is still coaching and I’m going to go and visit.”
Two of Staples’ classmates on the 2006 team that won one of the 18 regional titles under Kull also were on hand.
Rachael Caricato Dallke is a teacher from Elburn who played at UNC Wilmington and Jessica Mate played for St. Mary’s in Minnesota. She drove in from Milwaukee, where she works as a physician assistant.
“There was not a better mentor to prepare me for teaching,” Dallke said.
“She was always there for us, even outside of volleyball,” Mate said. “And she was tough in the best way, motivating you to get better.”
Ten years ago, it was reinforced for Staples when her mother died suddenly.
“Jennie was the first person on the scene at my house,” Staples said. “My dad called her. She picked me up at O’Hare in the middle of the night and comforted me. I still remember that night.”
Former players Lindsey Hawkins and Nicole Lambert, who now coach rival teams at St. Charles North and DeKalb, also were in attendance.
Staples didn’t play at the next level.
“I was too short for any big colleges,” she said.
She attended Illinois and has remained active, however, playing ultimate Frisbee. She rides mountain bikes competitively. She also runs marathons — 15 so far.
“It all started in this gym,” Staples said, watching the JV match unfold. “Two-a-days in what seemed like 100-degree Midwest humidity and full-on bled on that floor. It brought me back.”
The same was true for Kull.
Maybe it’s fitting that her retirement comes on the 50th anniversary of Title IX, which opened the door for female athletes in this country.
It’s legends like Kull, who played volleyball at Wichita State and coached at several colleges and her alma mater Champaign Central before coming north to St. Charles, who have played critical roles in the development of women’s athletics.
Kull had a great role model in her mother, Dorothy Miller, a physical education teacher who even coached boys basketball in Yorkville when many of the men were away during World War II.
“My mom was in the midst of the whole thing forever,” Kull said. “It’s why I’ve been pretty passionate about it.”
That’s also why she continued coaching while raising her daughters with her husband, Jim, a St. Charles East music teacher.
“I think my kids benefited from me being a coach,” Kull said. “All these kids helped raise them. I wanted the females I worked with to appreciate the fact that their value means just as much as males. That they can do whatever they want.”
Well said, coach.
And, as many people told you Wednesday, well done.