Photo Courtesy of Fresno State Athletics
Ed has played and coached volleyball since his senior year in high school
Often one of the overlooked aspects of sports is the relationship between the coach and player, but how about the coach and the spouse?
Fresno State volleyball assistant coach Ed Jackson not only shares a home and family with his wife Alanna, but also a volleyball court.
The two have been Bulldog assistants for the past two years, just one of the many stops in their volleyball careers.
Ed met his wife while finishing up his master’s degree at Sacramento State, where he doubled as a top performer on the men’s national championship club team. Alanna’s best friend was an athlete on the Hornet’s women’s team, and the two soon became close, bonded together by volleyball.
But Ed admits it was not exactly love at first sight, and he had to muster up the courage after six years to approach his wife-to-be.
“Eventually I got the guts to ask her out, and the rest is history,” Ed said.
From there, Ed and his wife began their long stretch of volleyball coaching. Ed’s first stop was as a coach in Illinois, but found himself working alongside Alanna in 2001 after jumping around from various high school and collegiate coaching positions.
Together the two were drawn to Fresno, a close proximity to Ed’s hometown of San Diego and Alanna’s hometown of Sacramento.
Since being hired on at Fresno State, Ed said has experienced nothing but great things and has a bright outlook for his tenure as a Bulldog assistant coach.
“There’s a lot of support here,” Ed said. “Being a student-athlete or even being a coach, we have a lot of people that help us out, more so than any other school I have been a part of, and I’ve been a part of three other division-one programs.”
In Ed’s two years as Fresno State volleyball’s assistant coach, he has guided the team from seven wins in 2008 to 15 wins this past season.
Q & A
Is there such thing as too much volleyball for you?
No. We [Alanna and I] pretty much talk about it daily. It’s never enough. I mean sure, you know you need to rejuvenate here and there, but for the most part there isn’t too much. My senior year of high school, I started playing this game, and really fell in love with it.
What have you enjoyed more, coaching or playing.
That’s a hard one to say. I enjoyed playing, and the reality is I felt I could impact the game more from playing, so that part I enjoyed more. I do like the challenge of trying to help the athletes on the team perform at their best. The nice thing about being a player is working toward something. As an athlete, being one out there on the floor and making it happen, that’s awesome.
What has been the most memorable moment for you, coaching or playing?
Winning the national title at Sac State for club. We were always one of the better teams. Every year I was there, we were always in the top five in the country, but we were never number one. And I did it at the end of my career, so to be able to push through and persevere, and finally get to say we were the best team in the country for a day, was pretty cool.
If you’re not doing a volleyball related activity, what can you be found doing?
Hanging out with my son and my wife. Being a dad. Going to the park or doing anything to be a part of his life as much as I can. It doesn’t seem like we get to do it very often, but when we do we always try and spend time with family.
Do you have any aspirations of being a head coach again?
I have not been a head coach at the NCAA level. I’ve been a head coach at the high school and collegiate club level for men. We’ve had opportunities to be head coaches, but none of them really ever fit for both of us. Ultimately I think that is ideally our dream job, Alanna and I, to be coaching together with a program.
What do you look forward to in the years to come as a Fresno State coach?
Just more success. We are starting to talk about the NCAA tournament and trying to get there. My first year at Santa Barbara, we got to go there. We all have that experience, but none of these athletes do, so that’s what I would like for those athletes to be able to say they got to play in the national championship tournament.
What is it like coaching with your wife?
It’s great. We are pretty much like yin and yang, we just really connect. She knows how I coach and I know how she coaches. I really couldn’t see myself coaching without her.”