DACULA — A WHITE PADDED CHAIR sits behind the volleyball action to signify Buford’s bench. Head coach Christina Lecoeuvre rarely uses it. She stands the entire time and roams.
A loud clap serves as her call. Lecoeuvre uses it to urge, celebrate and rally her group of Wolves.
“Anything (gets me going),” Lecoeuvre said. “Competing gets me excited. I could be playing pickleball with my husband and I’m happy to compete.”
Buford, ranked amongst the top teams in the nation, plays in the early stages of 2024 with a 3-1 record as of Aug. 15. Lecoeuvre, in her fourth year as head coach, itches to get the Buford program back to national prominence and return to the state championship stage. A season ago, Buford fell well short of the title game after dropping a three-set decision to rival North Gwinnett.
Her team returns most of its team from a season ago. Buford believes it has what it takes beyond the on-court play to return to past form of three-consecutive state championships.
Lecoeuvre’s leadership style and relationships with her athletes play a significant role.
“We’re carrying that with us this year. We’re going to move on from the past, but we also remember it. We’re going to remember losing in the second round. That ain’t going to happen again.”
Those around Lecoeuvre reiterate her importance of leading Buford’s program from her time at the middle school to assisting Hadli Daniels and taking over at the helm. She swapped positions with the longtime head coach so Daniels could take a different role and attend her son’s games as quarterback of Stanford University.
“We always joke that we are a true yin and yang,” Daniels said. “I had been coaching here for 17 years and didn’t have all that spunk and energy anymore, which you can clearly see in her.”
TEA TIME happens fairly frequently within the process about Buford volleyball. The 20-plus players on Lecoeuvre’s roster need guidance outside the sport at a young age.
“We might even have team sit-downs, and she’s giving advice from her days,” senior Stephanie Eroh said. “She’s an adult, she’s been there. She knows everything.”
Lecoeuvre said the players call her a “second mom.” In many ways, it shows validity. She checks in on players. She helps with numerous problems. She keeps players accountable at practice, even on off days, and expects the best results in practice and games.
Junior Morgan Sanders realized that an on-and-off switch doesn’t exist. A team won’t play well in games if it does not practice well, and Lecoeuvre does her best to instill that each day.
Buford readies to see it translate.
“I know in my head that we’re going to be good,” Lecoeuvre said. “and I can’t wait to be on the court and prove it to people.”
A WEEK BEFORE the season started, Buford volleyball took a trip to a lake house for team bonding. They spent time on the water, and Sanders’ favored a painting activity when they used artistic ability – if you have it, that is – to paint paddles or oars.
“I’m not the best painter, but more of an academic person,” Sanders said. “I painted it pink, because I’m not really artistic.”
Along with the lake house trip, Buford planned events such as a bake-off, hiking and a Queens of Bogan beach volleyball tournament at nearby Bogan Park.
Last season, Buford players lacked familiarity with each other. It had two seniors and multiple players, which lacked cohesion. It led to Buford’s 25-9 record and the postseason disappointment as opposed to a 38-5 record and ranked No. 10 nationally the season prior.
The togetherness of the 2024 team comes not only from planned bonding events, but spur-of-the-moment hangouts – as simple as a dinner outing – between players.
“She puts so much emphasis on building relationships,” Daniels said. She is big on team bonding and having fun off the court, because she knows that transfers over to what happens on the court.”
Added junior Clara Briley: “We all trust each other.”
Many of the players played for the A5 club team over the summer. Now, they spend numerous hours on the practice court throughout the week along with the 30-plus games played throughout the campaign.
“We not only have confidence in our skill set, but in the intangibles,” Lecoeuvre said. “It’s the outside factors that will make us so good this year. Everything else will handle itself.”
SEVEN PLAYERS surrounded Lecoeuvre in a team picture during the early days of her first head coaching job at Windsor Forest High School. After years on the coast in Savannah, Ga., she moved to Gwinnett County when her husband, Joel Lecoeuvre, took a position as head basketball coach at Archer – where he stayed for 10 years before taking over at Jackson County.
During that time, Lecoeuvre took a significant jump. She spent years teaching Buford Middle School and building the grassroots of the Wolves’ volleyball team at the younger grades before moving to the high school. She teaches introduction to business and has been deeply involved with the varsity sport for quite some time.
She went from seven players to what Lecoeuvre called an “elite” group of athletes and coaches.
“To see where life has taken me and the path we’ve been on makes me so grateful,” Lecoeuvre said.
Lecoeuvre’s volleyball passions shone at the college level when she played for Division II Armstrong Atlantic State University. It gave her the drive to lead others, which manifested not only in her first head coaching job, but when she worked her way up the ranks within the Buford school system.
Now at the high school level, her time at Buford Middle School isn’t forgotten. She watched many of the players during sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade grow up, and now they’ve joined her at the varsity and junior varsity levels.
Lecoeuvre wants to see more players who have experience playing in the Wolves’ program. Lecoeuvre sees it as more than a team, but a program that expands systemwide. It shows itself during practice when varsity and junior varsity players work together on fundamentals and ball control drills for the first hour. The players split into teams for the final hour.
“We’re not putting a label on it, because everybody can benefit,” Lecoeuvre said.
At some point during the next year, Buford will implement a developmental league at the city gym. Lecoeuvre said that Buford must grow its “homegrown” element.
“That’s the only way we can do it,” she said.
A LACK OF PREPARATION doomed the Wolves when it reached the second round of the postseason a year ago, and the players will admit it.
It didn’t make for a fun experience,” Briley said. “We went in there thinking ‘We had it in the bag.’”
It led to heartbreak. Buford felt like it let down the seniors, each other and Lecoeuvre. Buford tries not to dwell.
It leads Buford to a more aggressive mentality entering a new season. Briley indicated that the Wolves want to enter each gym – home or away – and act like they “own the place.” Buford continues to work on an elevated level of cohesion in its four games at Roswell High School and Hebron Christian Academy, and knows it can get better. A chance to redeem its lone loss of 2024 comes in an upcoming four-game set against North Cobb, Richmond Hill, West Forsyth and Alpharetta.
Each game, the North Gwinnett game sits in the back of Buford’s mind as it has a proving point to make.
“I have chills talking about it,” Eroh said.
Throughout the season, don’t expect Lecoeuvre to rest. Her rally claps will be put to use at a torrid pace, too.
“We’re hungrier than ever,” Lecoeuvre said.
