Shorewood volleyball player Marianne Kellogg couldn’t believe that the Lynnwood coach had the audacity to call a timeout during a string of great serves.
Kellogg wasn’t surprised because of the move that the coach made. It was a strategic play that most coaches would have made, but most coaches aren’t her mother.
Jean Kellogg coaches the Lynnwood volleyball team, while her daughter is a player for Shorewood, meaning that for at least two nights a year, mother and daughter become enemies.
“When I play, I play to win,” Jean said. “I called a timeout when she was serving to try to break her serve.”
At the time, Marianne didn’t see the humor.
“I was so mad,” Marianne said. “I went into the timeout and I said, ‘This is my mother, this isn’t fair, she can’t do this to me.’”
Marianne was quick to point out that her mother’s strategy didn’t work.
“It’s OK because I aced the next ball, so it was fine,” Marianne said.
Coach Kellogg got the better of her daughter in both regular season meetings this season, but Marianne isn’t shy about pointing out that she still has the edge over her mother in head-to-head competition, beating her mom’s team three of the five times they have played. The two have played against each other since Marianne was in middle school.
That could change in the coming days as the 3A District 1 volleyball tournament begins today. Both Lynnwood and Shorewood have qualified for the tournament. Shorewood and Lynnwood are on opposite sides of the district bracket, so another meeting might be unlikely, but not impossible. Lynnwood opens up tournament play at 5 p.m. today against Ferndale at Oak Harbor High School. The Thunderbirds also begin the tournament at 5 p.m. today against the No. 1 seed Meadowdale Mavericks at Glacier Peak High School.
For Marianne, it is the buildup to the matches against her mom’s team that she likes the most.
“It’s fun, I like it,” Marianne said. “I really like the pregame buildup. The week before it’s like trash-talking each other, being like, ‘You’re not going to be able to come home tonight, you’re going to lose.’”
The two Kellogg’s laugh about their meetings on the floor, but there is no question that they are both very competitive.
“I woke up the first up the first time we played in high school and said ‘Now today you’re not my daughter,’” Jean said.
Marianne responded to her teammates the only way she could.
“I was like, ‘Guys she disowned me, let’s win,’” Marianne recalled.
While the Kellogg’s situation is unique, there is no shortage of mothers or fathers who coach their kids in the area. Monroe coach April Munoz coaches her daughter Kendal, Stanwood coach Erik Titus coaches his daughter Krista, Meadowdale coach Machen Shrum coaches her daughter Payton and Mariner coach Amy Jones coaches her daughter Kristen Fowler.
Kendal Munoz has played for her mother for all four of her years on varsity and says that it is an interesting dynamic.
“I guess it’s interesting,” Kendal said. “There are some good days and some bad days, but I mean it’s fun. It’s interesting to be able to hear a coaches perspective on things and things on the team, and it’s nice to be able to give her my input and see how she reacts to what I think is going on. But we have our arguments and we have our happy time, but you know, I’m used to it now.”
The Munoz’s don’t sugarcoat anything. While many parents might tell you that they get along with their kids all the time and coaching them works just fine, coach Munoz will tell you that her and her daughter aren’t always the best at keeping their home life and volleyball separate.
“Not really, I would say we don’t,” April said. “That’s what makes it challenging, when you have that much passion for each other and that much passion for a sport. No, we don’t separate it very well, but I think it still works.”
It has worked well enough for the Bearcats to take the third seed from the Wesco North this season, coming up just short of a share of the league championship this season. The Bearcats take on Kamiak on Tuesday at 4 p.m. in the opening round of the 4A district 1 tournament
Coach Munoz has a theory on the other volleyball families out there who say that they keep everything separate.
“They might, I would venture to bet that they don’t as much as they say they do,” Munoz said. “To be honest with you, you can try as hard as you might, but it’s your sister or it’s your daughter or it’s your loved one and it’s always that way. You do treat them differently, but typically, you’re tougher on them as a coach.”
Kendal is the second daughter that April has coached. She coached her other daughter Kylin, who is now a starter on the University of Washington’s volleyball team, at Monroe as well. Three years ago it was really a family affair at Monroe, both Kylin and Kendal played for their mother at Monroe at the same time.
Kendal, who was a freshman at the time, talked about what it was like to play on the same team as her sister.
“It was exciting and overwhelming and nerve racking all at the same time,” Kendal said. “It was exciting because I was a freshman on varsity and it was just a big thrill. It was also (overwhelming) at times. She is this, you know, Pac-12 amazing volleyball player and it was kind of cool to be able to say that I played with someone like that and then on the side, she is my sister. Sometimes it was nerve racking because, you know, she is good, so I wouldn’t want to look bad in front of her and I wanted to play well.”
While a few volleyball players have played with one of their siblings, there is a unique situation at Jackson.
Jackson head coach Ashley Allen, who formerly played for the Timberwolves, has the task of coaching her younger sister Emmy.
To hear the Allens tell it, there isn’t much drama between the two. That could be helped by the fact that the Timberwolves are the defending Class 4A state champions and Emmy is widely regarded as one of, if not the best volleyball player in the area.
“It’s weird, I forget that she is my sister,” Emmy said. “As soon as we get in the gym, she is my coach and when we leave the gym, she is my sister and there is no in between gray areas. That is just how it is.”
The Timberwolves begin defense of their state championship on Wednesday when they face Marysville Pilchuck at 4 p.m. in the opening round of the 4A district 1 tournament.
Both Allen sisters said they can’t speak to what it is like to play for their mother, but they did offer some insight as to what their dynamic is like.
“Obviously sisters, when they are sisters, we bicker back and forth a little bit,” Coach Allen said. “We can kind of get into arguments, whereas with mother-daughter, mom is right because she is mom. But I think once you get onto the court I don’t see why there would be any difference between the dynamic we have and the dynamic they have.”
The Kelloggs take that mother-daughter dynamic an extra step as friendly rivals. Coach Kellogg recalls that first high school match against each other and how she had to form a disconnect from thinking about Marianne as her daughter.
“I found myself, when we compete, really not thinking about her as my daughter,” Jean said. “I told her once, ‘I have been a coach 23 years now.’ So I have been a coach longer than she has been my daughter.”
For both Marianne and Jean, sometimes it takes a while after the match to get out of the competitive mode.
“After she beat me, I had to drive around going to a friend’s house,” Jean said.
“The same with me,” Marianne added. “I was like, ‘Guys I’m not going home, trust me, I’m not going home.’”
But by the time the competitiveness has worn off, the two are the loving mother-daughter combination that they always appear to be off the floor.
“I took an hour to get home and of course when I get home she’s all smiles,” Jean said. “She meets me at the door, ‘Hi!’ But I knew I had to come out of my competitive mode before I got home so I could be a mom.”
And for Kellogg, the competition between the two isn’t always black and white. Her motherly instincts show through the competitiveness on the outside.
“I think the hard part is when, you play against each other, and when I beat her, the hard part was coming home and being the mom,” Kellogg said. “Knowing that her pain and her loss and frustration … it does impact you, because it’s hard to feel responsible for those feelings, to know that you are a part of the team that did that.”
Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Follow him on twitter @aaronlommers and contact him at aaronlommers@gmail.com.
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