On the Map

Amanda Cauley remembers the empty stands.

As she took the court with her fellow teammates as members of the Louisiana Tech volleyball team from 1997 till 2001, there wasn’t a crowd to speak of inside the Thomas Assembly Center.

Volleyball wasn’t a sport people paid any mind to in those days.

Gyms were empty, funding was low and high school programs weren’t around in north Louisiana. The sport seemed to be an afterthought for the region.

“It was a black hole. It was void. It was non-existent,” Amanda said. “I just remember there being not very many people in the stands. But then we would go two hours down I-20 in East Texas and we played matches where it was standing room only.”

She knew something had to change. North Louisiana needed volleyball.

Program origins

In the years after her playing days, Cauley became a teacher at Simsboro High School, working with young kids in growing in the classroom.

But an athletic outlet for young girls was missing. She began to meet with Ricky Durrett, who was the principal at Simsboro at the time. As much as they tried initally, the numbers weren’t there. The community had no base to start with.

Girls weren’t playing because there were no youth programs to start up in and thus, families would then have no interest in forming a high school program due to girls not finding interest in the sport. The vicious cycle was tough to beat.

Cauley and Durrett eventually made their way to Ruston High School, where Cauley began to teach drama, public speaking, and physical education. She wanted to add volleyball coach to her title. And with her playing experience and passion, Durrett worked with fellow administrators and eventually got the program approved.

“We needed another opportunity for girls at Ruston,” Durrett said. “ Whenever you think about starting something new, it’s never easy. But it was kind of an easy decision knowing her passion for it and experience.”

And in 2014, Ruston High School volleyball officially began. And with it came an expected learning curve.

Harper Cauley, one of Amanda’s three daughters, remembers the stress her mom was under just to get the team off the ground. Harper, now a sophomore at Ruston High, remembers Amanda constantly on the phone, trying to build connections and put together the resources necessary to make the dream a reality.

“She was always working on it,” Harper said.

In the first year of the program, the Bearcats couldn’t join the LHSAA quite yet, as they were still considered a club team and were limited in who they could play.

The team itself was taking baby steps in its growth. Out of 88 girls who came to try out the first year, two had played volleyball before, and they were originally from Texas.

Tryouts ended up being teaching lessons about the game more than a typical talent evaluation.

“We had a multi-day tryout where we were looking for simple things really, because you can’t look for volleyball skills at that point,” Amanda said. “We were looking to see who showed up on time, who talked, who hustled.”

Ruston would celebrate overhand serves and getting the ball over the net at that point.

But the team kept growing and getting better day by day. It made the growing pains worth it for Amanda.

“It didn’t matter who you were, she’d always work with you,” Harper said. “She never turned people away. She was always very welcoming.”

The dream of giving girls the chance to learn the sport she loved was finally in motion.

From there, Amanda went on a statewide mission to promote the program.

After all, teams near Baton Rouge and New Orleans have been in existence since the early 1980s. Hearing a team from North Louisiana was formed was tough to process when Cauley first explained it.

“When we started the program, I went to a coaches’ meeting in Baton Rouge and I had to stand up and say, ‘Hey, I’m up north and we’re starting a program and we want to play you all,’” Amanda recalled. “‘It’s not some church league. We want to play.’”

“We were just trying to be competitive and advocate and advertise and say, ‘Hey, we’re here now.’”

The Bearcats would travel at least an hour away for every game they played in their first year. Exposure was crucial. No one knew what Ruston volleyball was.

But soon, their play on the court did the talking. The team contended for the Division I, District 1 title all four seasons under Amanda’s coaching and won two undefeated district championships and earned a state playoff berth in the 2017-18 season.

Lucie Hunt came back to Ruston just as the program was starting to hit its stride.

Attending Louisiana Tech from 2008-12, Hunt received a Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology Health and Physical Education before she would serve as the Interim Head Coach at Comeaux High School in Lafayette for one season.

She would make her way to West Monroe High School and served as the girls basketball and track assistant for two years. She tried, with no luck, to form a volleyball program of her own at West Monroe. Interest wasn’t there.

And in 2016, an assistant coaching opportunity in Ruston was open.

She remembers joining the staff and truly processing how far behind North Louisiana volleyball was from the rest of the region.

“It wasn’t around,” Hunt said. “From the Arkansas line to a little past Alexandria, volleyball didn’t exist.”

Originally from Hot Springs, Arkansas, Hunt started volleyball when she was in 5th grade — a far cry from most girls she began to interact with at Ruston.

She didn’t know so many young girls lived their lives unaware of such an awesome sport.

“I didn’t know life without volleyball, I didn’t know peo. le didn’t have that at their schools,” Hunt said. “I knew some smaller schools didn’t have football and stuff like that, but I didn’t know volleyball was not an option.”

And after two years with the program, Hunt would take over for Cauley as head coach after she decided to resign to focus on her three young daughters. The pressure to be more present for her family was getting to be too much.

Moving on from her passion project — her dream — was hard.

But after spending years with Hunt and realizing her passion for the game, the transition went more smoothly than most.

“We kind of have a phrase of ‘pass the baton,’” Cauley said. “She took it and took off running.”

On the map

The road to building up the reputation of the North Louisiana volleyball scene has been a long process — and one with many more steps to take.

Simsboro still doesn’t have volleyball. Neither does Cedar Creek, Choudrant or Lincoln Preparatory School. Parkway didn’t begin its volleyball program until 2017. Airline started in 2013 and won its first playoff game in 2018. West Monroe started in 2018.

But now, in year eight of the Ruston High program, Hunt feels like the Bearcats finally have the attention of the state.

And from where the sport was a decade ago, it brings tremendous pride to her face as she speaks on it.

“I had the opportunity last year to be an assistant coach for the West for the All- Star game and they have this luncheon for all the girls and coaches,” Hunt said. “And one of the New Orleans coaches got up there and she was like, ‘Look, North Louisiana didn’t even have volleyball and look, you have a Ruston coach on the coaching staff. Nobody’s ever heard of Ruston.’”

“It was a joke, but your state recognizes you now as a contender and a competitor.”

Ruston entered the final weekend of the regular season with a 26-9 record and has a chance to host another first-round playoff game.

The eight years since the founding of the program has gone about as well as Durrett and Amanda expected. When the foundation was laid for the start of the program, Amanda and Durrett discussed a five, 10, and 20-year plan for where Ruston could be. They knew it would take six to seven years to become a stable competitor.

Durrett, who now serves as the Lincoln Parish superintendent of schools, still makes time to catch up on Ruston’s scores and occasionally makes it to a game. From begging for girls to come try out to another postseason push, Durrett said the program’s rise has been amazing to watch from afar.

“We wanted to be able to compete for a state championship by the time we were done with it,” Durrett said. “Trying to get it off the ground, get it competitive and take longer and take it competitive state-wide. If they’re able to win state one day, that’d make it full circle.”

Now, Baton Rouge teams want to come up north and play Ruston, Airline, Natchitoches Central, and the rest of a now-competitive volleyball scene. Amanda Cauley can’t help but feel some sense of pride in helping make that happen, especially as she watches Harper lead the Bearcats as an outside hitter.

“It’s just so rewarding to get to watch her play for the program I started,” Amanda said. “I didn’t think it would hit me like that, but it has.”

Harper views volleyball as her escape — a play where she can be herself. All the emotions of the day can be channeled in practice and with her teammates. She calls Ruston volleyball a sisterhood. And she doesn’t take the opportunity for granted.

She now realizes many girls in the region didn’t have the chance less than a decade ago. It’s fun watching schools starting to take it seriously.

“It’s honestly cool seeing how my mom started the first program and seeing them kind of follow in her footsteps,” Harper said. “It’s pretty cool.”

Hunt knew Amanda left big shoes to fill when she took over. She wanted to carry on the legacy and make Ruston into the powerhouse Amanda envisioned all those years ago.

Hunt attended coaching clinics, watched film guides and tried to learn everything she could to make herself the proper leader for the program’s future. And she’s watching area schools follow suit. Bossier and Shreveport are starting to get middle school programs, and tournaments are calling to get Ruston on the schedule. Ruston volleyball isn’t an afterthought anymore.

“A couple years ago, I think it was my first year as head coach here, my big thing was, ‘We’re going to put Ruston on the map,’” Hunt said. “That was what I told the girls everywhere we went, ‘We’re going to tell them who Ruston is.’ And at the end of the season, the parents got me a gift that said, ‘Thank you for putting Ruston on the map,’ and it was every team we had played across the state and the state was filled up.”

“That’s always pretty humbling. You say you’re going to put a team on the map and you really do it and you make a name for yourself. Everybody knows who Ruston is now.”