One of several changes within the Lampasas athletic department for this coming season is a new head volleyball coach who comes here from Burnet.
Coach Ali Tippie is bringing a lot of energy and excitement to the volleyball program. She said she and her family felt called to Lampasas and the open position in the sport she loves.
“We love Lampasas, we love the school district in Lampasas,” Tippie said. “My daughter was starting kindergarten, so we kind of wanted to put her in Lampasas anyhow … We already lived in Lampasas, so it just kind of felt like a calling and like we were really being pushed through. A lot of prayer and everything because I love Burnet, but through prayer and through counsel and just deciding stuff for our family with my husband, we decided this was the right move for everyone.”
The coach graduated from Burnet High School and went on to play both volleyball and softball at Howard Payne University in Brownwood. She earned her master’s degree in business administration.
After working for about three years as a regional marketing manager, Tippie moved back to Brownwood and was coaching club volleyball when she was convinced to give coaching at the high school level a shot.
“I really found what my purpose was and my calling,” Tippie said about her first coaching job. “I really just fell in love with it.”
She wanted to move back home with her young family. A coach from Burnet reached out to her to tell her the head softball position was open, along with assistant volleyball.
“I really enjoyed my time over there, and I made a lot of great connections, got to coach with a lot of people who coached me,” Tippie said of her time at Burnet.
The new Lampasas coach said she loves both volleyball and softball, and she couldn’t be more excited to have the head position and the opportunity to build the volleyball program.
“I love softball, but volleyball is like my huge passion because it’s just one of those sports that I feel like relates to life lessons in a lot of ways,” Tippie said. “It’s a game of mistakes; it’s a game of imperfection and learning how to bounce back from those mistakes and from imperfection.
“I couldn’t be more excited,” she said. “The girls are excited -- the ones I’ve seen throughout the summer at camps and everything -- and our younger programs, they are really buying in. I can feel that already.”
Tippie said she has always felt a connection with Lampasas because she grew up in Briggs, and her family spent a lot of time around Lampasas even while she went to school in Burnet.
“I felt like I was more comfortable with the Lampasas area than I was Burnet, even though that sounds weird because I went to school in Burnet every day,” the coach said. “But I just felt like I knew a lot more people in the community here. It’s closer to where my dad lives, closer to our ranch in Briggs, so that was what drew us to buying a house in Lampasas. And then learning about school districts and then the success of the elementary schools in particular, we were like, ‘Yeah, this is where we’re meant to be.’ ” The volleyball team officially started practice on Friday under the new head coach, so a new era of Lady Badger volleyball has begun.
The first scrimmages will be in Copperas Cove on Aug. 8, and the first official game will be played at Manor New Tech on Aug. 12.
A deeper look at the season and some analysis will appear in the special Fall Sports Preview, which will hit newsstands Aug. 29.