Sue Medley
Episode 32
9 SEP 2019
Fifteen years ago she was told by doctors that she had six months left to live! She was the Head Volleyball Coach at Saint Mary’s College in Indiana, then moved on to be the Assistant Volleyball Coach at Kansas State University, and then was the Head Coach at Cornell University before moving on to the University of Maine where she established the first NCAA Division I volleyball program in the school’s history. She is also the founder of the Maine Volleyball Coaches Association, and in USA Volleyball’s Iroquois-Empire Volleyball Association Region she serves as Director and Head Coach of the High Performance Volleyball Program there.
Notable guest quotes:
“In athletics I think all of us are somewhat tempted. It’s a very insular type of world. You can very easily live your days based on a competitive schedule, a practice schedule, and wins & losses… You’re giving your best effort but at the end of the day those things are not really what we’re here for.”
“I have always kind of felt that, regardless – win, lose, or draw – my faith and my relationship with God will always be the bedrock of what I do.”
“I want to be somebody that students can come to, my fellow coaches would approach, when things get tough. And when things get tough you need the Lord. You need Him in good times but you really need to know you have Him in bad times.”
“That’s really been my approach, is to try to love my neighbor as myself… Because I think with love you keep a door open. Sometimes I think with proselytizing and speaking we can sometimes close doors.”
“I think as a Christian we have an extra duty to walk our walk and not just talk our talk.”
“The opportunity for me to attend the University of Notre Dame is one of the greatest blessings that has happened to me in my life for sure.”
“The greatest gift that Notre Dame gave me was just the strengthening of my faith and the demonstration and just daily living of people who lived their faith out in their daily actions. So, it’s a place I think about just about every day of my life.”
“In that time period (dealing with health issues) I really leaned on the Lord to show me the way out because I knew that He had a different plan for me than what the doctors had.”