Niagara College’s new women’s volleyball coach was excited about the position the moment she saw the posting.

“It has always been a dream of mine to work at the post secondary level,” Elaine Pilgrim-Susi said. “I have coached from ages U11 up to U18 and I felt that this was the right timing and a great opportunity for me to continue to develop and grow as a coach and expand my opportunity to work with older athletes.”

The 57-year-old Hamilton native, who was raised in Woodstock, describes her coaching style as firm but fair. She takes a three-pronged approach to working with her athletes.

She looks as the athlete as a person first, what their unique abilities, traits and strengths are and what areas need to be continued to be improved upon. Academics are the second part of the prong because that is the first and foremost reason why they are at school.

“I want to make sure that they are successful not only on the court but off the court academically.”

The final prong in her approach is to provide high performance training, including proper nutrition and game analysis.

Hard-working is an apt description of her teams.

“I believe that hard work and training pays off. When we are committed to the training and what happens in our practices, it will transform into our game play,” she said. “It will be intense but fun. We want to make sure the athletes are enjoying the passion that they have chosen to pursue at post secondary, but also doing it in a way that pushes them to be the best athletes that they can be.”

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