Inductees

Back in the fall of 1975, Ann Gulshen couldn’t believe her ears. It had been three years since passage of federal Title IX legislation that forced public schools and universities to offer athletics to girls.

And as she entered her senior year, Eldon High School planned to offer volleyball and called it, “the biggest thing in my life.”

Talk about planting a seed because, from that opportunity, grew an athlete who found her calling. Gulshen eventually became a high school volleyball coach for 29 seasons – 16 at Eldon, 13 at Camdenton – and won 704 matches, climbing to among the top five in state history, and it’s why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame proudly inducted Gulshen with the Class of 2018.

In essence, Gulshen built Eldon’s program into a winner, guiding the Mustangs to eight consecutive Final Fours in Class 3 between 1986 and 1993. They captured the 1991 state championship, finished as runner-up in 1988 and 1993 and also placed third four times (1986, 1989, 1990, 1992) and fourth in 1987. Her teams there won 16 conference titles and 15 district championships.

At Camdenton from 1998 to 2010, Gulshen’s teams won three district championships and four conference championships.

This from a coach who arguably had a built-in edge. As the daughter of Vic and Jane Luetkemeyer – he was the Eldon School District principal, she was a first-grade teacher – Gulshen wasn’t a bookworm like her three brothers or sister.

“I was very competitive playing with the neighborhood guys and disappointed when I couldn’t compete on school teams,” Gulshen said. “’Why can’t I play?’ I’d ask. And the answer would be that girls could get hurt. That seemed like a strange answer since I was the toughest one in my family with three brothers.”

Gulshen graduated from Eldon in 1976, then earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education from the University of Missouri and returned to Eldon to teach. At that point, she was asked to coach volleyball and guess whose first team won a district title?

“It was beginner’s luck,” Gulshen said.

Actually, Gulshen, who admittedly knew little about the sport, enhanced her volleyball coaching IQ by dedicating her life to the sport.

There wasn’t a volleyball book she didn’t read. If she could travel to a coaching clinic or a team camp, she was there. And when returning home, demands on her players only ratcheted up. In fact, many of them now say Gulshen’s hard-nosed coaching prepared them for life’s challenges. And several of her players were inspired to become coaches themselves.

“I had no knowledge, but I had a lot of passion,” said Gulshen, who later earned a master’s degree at Mizzou. “And I had a lot of great kids. It just happened to coincide together. The kids would do what you asked them to do.”

Parents and businesses in Eldon also rallied around the program, with some grandparents making quilts and teddy bears for players.

“It was a small community,” Gulshen said. “We didn’t know what we didn’t have. (Parents) believed in what we did. I just had the fortune to grow up there and coach their kids.”

Every team created a motto. The 1991 team’s “We Believe” carried the Mustangs to the program’s first state title as they beat St. Francis Borgia, who had won four of its now-10 state titles by then.

“I thought we could win every game,” Gulshen said of her teams in general. “I always thought that I could out-work everybody else. And if my kids had that same philosophy, we’d win.”

In 1997, Gulshen began teaching at Camdenton but stepped way from coaching. Her parents had passed away over the past decade and her husband was working further south in Macks Creek after they welcomed two children into the world. A lot was on her plate.

However, after a year, Gulshen was asked to coach the volleyball program. Her Lakers teams then won 297 matches, with three teams falling only one win shy of the Final Four.

Along the way, Gulshen always had the support of husband Bart and sons Jay and Kyle.

Even better, she had the respect of players simply because Gulshen challenged them to be teammates, not individuals. Summer float trips, team camps, any idea she could think of to create camaraderie and rock the gym – her words – could set up winning seasons.

“This (induction) is not about me. This is about them,” Gulshen said of players. “All of them had a hand in it.”