(Courtesy of SMU Athletics )

Coach Seifert has been with SMU Volleyball since the beginning in 1996. She has built SMU tradition, talent and solid squads from the ground up.

Seifert received her bachelors in physical education at Winona State University where she played volleyball and softball and later added a masters in physical education from Wisconsin-LaCrosse.

In Seifert’s coaching career, she has coached players 21 All- Conference honorees and two All-Americans. Academically, 76 student athletes have been awared Academic All-American Conference Honors.

Before she took on the enormous project, she was a recruiting coordinator for six years at Texas Tech.

Accustomed to being in the top 15 and 25, taking on a ripe school would be a challenge.

“Coming into build [the program], I didn’t recognize how high the mountain was to climb,” Seifert said.

Fortunately, the 16-year trek Coach Seifert has made, has been a successful one for her and for the SMU Volleyball program.

Last season’s squad set school records with 25 wins, going 25-6, overall, including a 11-2 mark in Moody Coliseum.

The squad ranked 21st nationally and posted an 80.6 percent win. This season, the expectations are set high along with the challenges.

“I can honestly say in the 16 years I’ve been here this preseason schedule is the most difficult I’ve ever scheduled,” Seifert said.

“We feel really good about approaching conference.” Especially with the 2011 squad Coach Seifert has guided this year success is reachable.

She expects highlighted performances from Jessica Oliver and Courtney Manning who have showed consistent performances this past weekend.