Onalaska ISD has welcomed back a coach who enjoyed postseason success as an assistant on the Class 1A level the past two seasons.
Megan Nichols helped direct the Neches Lady Tigers to the regional semifinals in the 2022-23 season and the state semifinals just nine months ago.
“This will actually be my eighth year,” the coach said of her career with the whistle. “My first two years were at Hull-Daisetta ISD and I had my first head coaching job at Chester ISD. I was there for three years, and I was actually the athletic director there for a little bit. I went to Onalaska for one year, but I wasn’t really coaching. I did (junior varsity) for a little bit. The last two years we spent at Neches ISD and I have been teaching English there and coaching volleyball.
“We decided to come back to Onalaska, because it was a little bit closer to where we live in Groveton. I really liked the Onalaska community and we decided that we wanted to go back there.”
Nichols had no plans of coaching in her first stint at Onalaska.
“I have a five-year-old now, but she was three then and doing gymnastics, so I was going to take a year away from coaching. They asked me if I wanted to help, so I ended up coaching the JV.”
A Hardin High School and Lamar University graduate, the coach is familiar with many of the athletes now in high school. She will also serve as an assistant track coach and teach eighth-grade English.
“I had a lot of these girls that will be sophomores and juniors this year, back whenever they were in seventh and eighth grade,” Nichols said. “I knew them and knew how coachable they are, so we were kind of excited to get there and help with that. Coach Danna Mitschke, who was the coach last year, reached out to me. Me and my partner both coach, and he is going to be my assistant coach. She was telling us congratulations, because at Neches ISD we went to the state semifinal game this year. We lost in the state semis (to eventual state champion Blum), so she was wondering if we were going to stay there or come back, and if I wanted to take the head coaching job.”
The coach said a stong group of girls that worked hard at Neches provides similarities to those she has now led for a few weeks in summer workouts by the lake.
“They all are so coachable. They want to learn and we have high expectations. We have set them from the beginning with our summer workouts, and they have already started to rise to those expectations. This is our third week. Our first day of workouts, Coach (and athletic director Nick) Tyerman said it was a record number of 95, but that was girls and boys. I would say from seventh through 12th grade volleyball, we have had at least 40 to 50 — it has been a bunch. It really blew me away, for sure, because Neches is a 1A and very small. The numbers were just astronomical compared to Neches. I have seen the same girls all three weeks and they are here every day.”
There are several who return with experience and Nichols said she has had the opportunity to watch plenty of film from last year’s contests.
“A lot of my returners that I have this year will probably be in some different spots. We’re still looking at one setter and a 5-1 (alignment). What we have really been focusing on is just the fundamentals of passing and defense. We’re looking to build confidence in them, because they are all very young. I think I have maybe one senior or two. The rest of them are real young. We want to do what we call failing forward, so we want to fail early so often to not be scared doing the things that are going to make us better in the long run.”
The coach said her seniors, as well as returners Faith Tireman and Chloe Mitschke have shown up to workouts each day, encouraging their younger teammates.
“We are hoping for a playoff spot this year and definitely working toward that. We have been trying to focus on confidence with them, but we place a strong emphasis on the weight room. We think those things are really important, just because it is going to build that mental toughness that we are going to need as the season goes on when we get to the big moments. We emphasize on doing the hard now, so it ends up paying off for us. We’re really excited to be at Onalaska and there is going to be exciting things coming, so we are ready for them.”
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