Column: Painting a pretty volleyball picture
Jaimie Nelson might seem like an unlikely pick to be Glacier High’s next volleyball coach, in that it’s her first varsity coaching job at the age of 48.
But who’s to say? Nelson spent the past two seasons as freshman coach under Christy Harkins, whose second tenure as the Wolfpack coach — she returned after a one-year “retirement” in 2023 — ended in December.
Before that, Nelson was a volunteer coach for the 2022 Wolfpack while also getting into the sport at the club level.
“Following my daughter’s eighth grade year I looked for clubs that were hiring and I got hooked up Montana Northwest,” Nelson said. Soon, she was guiding the U14 Elite team for Peter Musick.
Montana Northwest’s U14 team just competed in Spokane, by the way, finishing fifth out of 37 teams. “It was a huge growth weekend for them,” Nelson said.
This is all cool, but there’s more even if it won’t appear to translate to the volleyball court.
For one, the California native had not one but two trips to Montana to photograph weddings. By the second one, in Columbia Falls, the 20-year-old was smitten.
“It was a very small wedding,” she said. “Beautiful. I was working for another photographer, and I came back and I’d fallen in love.”
She fell for a fella not much later, and it’s worth nothing that she met her future in-laws for the first time at an Eastern C Divisional basketball tournament. It was 2003, she figured: Josh Nelson is a Lambert Lion, Class of 2001.
Perfect Montana in-law meet-cute aside, Nelson’s connection to Glacier athletics goes at least back to 2018, when her son Diego Mendoza got on the varsity soccer team (he was All-State in 2020).
Now she takes over a program that made the last two state tournaments, though last season’s team finished fifth in the Western AA standings and ended up 11-17. The club season will take her chargers though May; then comes the high school season in late August.
“I’ve had a fantastic amount of support while pursuing this role,” she said. “It isn’t what I set out to do, but it became apparent pretty quickly that I had the skills to contribute to the program.”
Then, with a laugh: “That’s what they tell me, anyway.”
On a more serious note, she’d like to see Glacier stay in the top half of the Western AA, and for the Western AA to make inroads against what has become a dominate Eastern AA.
“Building relationships is really a priority,” Nelson said. “This year’s seniors. I’ll be their third head coach. I want to give them a positive experience to close their career.
“We hear kids are leaving programs in record numbers. I hope that they leave our program still loving volleyball and that they’re confident in their abilities.”
Fritz Neighbor can be reached at 758-4463 or at fneighbor@dailyinterlake.com.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to show it was the Montana Northwest U14 team that completed in Spokane.