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When Shelly Nibarger took over the Circle volleyball program in 1989, there wasn’t much of a winning tradition to inherit.

The Thunderbirds had won five matches in the previous two seasons. They had managed just one winning record in the program’s first 14 years. The school’s successful girls tennis program attracted the top female athletes, leaving volleyball struggling for relevance.

Nibarger’s first team went 5-21.

She still remembers those girls fondly, not for the matches they won, but for helping establish the foundation of something none of them could have imagined at the time.

Thirty-eight seasons later, that struggling volleyball program has become one of the most consistently successful in Kansas history.

Nibarger, now 62, has amassed 1,010 career victories, the fifth-most in Kansas high school volleyball history. She’s guided Circle to 34 winning seasons, 16 league championships and 15 state tournament appearances, earning induction into the Kansas Volleyball Association Hall of Fame in 2024.

And this week, she’s taking the Thunderbirds back to state.

Circle (31-7) opens the Class 4A state volleyball tournament Thursday at Hutchinson Community College, another opportunity for Nibarger to pursue the one achievement that has eluded her: a state championship.

For a coach who has accomplished virtually everything else, it would be easy to assume that unfinished business is what keeps her coming back at 62 years old.

“That’s not why I’m doing this,” Nibarger said. “That’s not what keeps me coming back at all. It’s never been what drives me.”

To understand what has, you have to go back to where it all began, when a young basketball player-turned-teacher arrived in Towanda with no idea volleyball would become her life’s work.

How Shelly Nibarger built a winning tradition at Circle volleyball

Nibarger used to figure she would become a high school basketball coach.

She played the sport at Emporia State and pursued a degree in education because she knew she wanted to spend her life coaching teenagers. She never had ambitions of coaching at the college or professional levels.

“I always thought I was made to do this,” Nibarger said.

When Circle hired her to teach math in 1988, the available coaching opportunity happened to be in volleyball, a sport she had played in high school. She joined as an assistant, then jumped at the chance to become head coach when the position opened the following year.

She never left.

The first two seasons were difficult, but the breakthrough came quickly. Circle won 20 games in 1991 and qualified for the state tournament for the first time. Two years later, the Thunderbirds went 30-6 and brought home a third-place trophy.

Suddenly, girls were coming through Circle’s program expecting to win.

“Once you get a group of kids that go to state, then it just perpetuates,” Nibarger said. “That becomes the standard. Kids want to go back and then they start wanting to exceed what the previous team did.”

That expectation has endured through generations of graduating seniors.

Since Circle’s breakthrough in 1991, the Thunderbirds have endured just two losing seasons in 36 years. They strung together 19 consecutive winning seasons from 1997 through 2015 and have another active streak of 10 straight.

That consistency has carried across four decades, with Nibarger guiding Circle to state tournaments in the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. Of all her accomplishments, it’s that sustained standard of excellence that makes her proudest.

“I’m pretty sure when teams see Circle on their schedule, they know they’re going to get a competitive game against a well-disciplined, well-coached team,” Nibarger said. “And I’m not just talking about myself. I mean program wide.”

Her former players believe the foundation of that success can be traced to something far more personal than volleyball strategy.

“She has this ability to just always bring out the best in any team that she has,” said Tessa Cosby, a former Nibarger player who now serves as one of her assistant coaches. “She develops relationships outside the gym. Her players are so dedicated to not just playing for themselves and their teammates, but playing for her. When you’re out there, you always want to please her.”

Nibarger has never been afraid to demand discipline, commitment and accountability. But she also understands that being a demanding coach means little without first earning the trust of her players.

She takes an interest in their families, their other sports and whatever might be happening in their lives outside the gym. She’s known for writing handwritten notes, offering encouragement that extends well beyond a player’s volleyball performance.

Those little gestures have produced something that even 1,000 victories cannot guarantee.

Lifelong loyalty.

“When kids feel seen and feel loved and respected like that, it makes them want to play hard for their coach,” said Circle assistant coach Kellie Wartick, another former player. “They want to return that respect and admiration.”

A coach whose influence spans generations

Wartick and Cosby have experienced that loyalty from both sides.

The former Circle teammates played for Nibarger from 1998-2001, and more than two decades later, they’re back at Circle coaching alongside their former mentor. They’re joined by Shawnda Wishart, who has spent the past 20 years as Nibarger’s trusted right-hand assistant.

“Even to this day, I cannot bring myself to call her by her first name,” Cosby said with a laugh. “She’s always going to be ‘Coach’ to me.”

But the most remarkable part of their relationship might be how much life they’ve experienced together.

Wartick remembers when Nibarger’s oldest daughter was little enough to sit on her lap at restaurants after volleyball matches. She watched Nibarger raise her two daughters, Andie and Jessie, both of whom eventually became setters for Circle.

Now both daughters are expecting their first children in December, preparing to make Nibarger a grandmother for the first time.

Meanwhile, Wartick has a daughter of her own playing for the same coach who guided her through high school more than two decades ago.

Avery Wartick is Circle’s senior libero, leading the Thunderbirds with 362 digs after embracing a position change this season.

And when Avery needs advice about something beyond volleyball, she turns to Nibarger — just as her mother did when she was a teenager.

“She has seen me in almost every phase of my life,” Wartick said. “She has seen me through high school, through college, getting married, having babies. We’ve had amazing times together and faced heartbreak together. That’s why so many of us are so loyal to her because she has earned that from us.”

Nibarger has now coached dozens of daughters of former players, a development that initially caught her by surprise but has become a familiar part of life at Circle.

For the girls who once played for her, choosing to place their own daughters under her guidance speaks to the trust she has built over nearly four decades.

Yet even with so many years of experience, Nibarger has never stopped learning.

The sport has changed dramatically since she began coaching. Today’s teenagers have grown up surrounded by technology, studying film on phones and laptops while navigating a club volleyball culture that encourages players to constantly seek new opportunities.

Nibarger has adjusted her coaching methods and practices to keep pace without abandoning her expectations for discipline, patience and team-first commitment.

“Sometimes when coaches stick around that long, they get stuck in their ways,” Wartick said. “She’s not like that at all. She’s managed to adapt and change and adjust, while keeping those old-school methods of discipline and dedication and the same stuff we did 30 years ago.”

Nibarger believes teenagers still respond to the same fundamental things: encouragement, accountability and the feeling that someone genuinely believes in them.

Her 35 years teaching high school math also helped shape her approach. Every season brings another puzzle to solve, with different personalities, abilities and combinations of players to figure out.

“I just love everything about the sport,” Nibarger said. “I love the teamwork it takes. And I love how each season is a fresh start trying to put new pieces together. I think that problem solving, that’s where I thrive in. I just love it.”

Now in her fourth year of retirement from teaching, Nibarger has found that stepping away from the classroom has only strengthened her passion for coaching.

She stays active playing competitive pickleball three days a week and riding her e-bike. With grandchildren on the way, she has plenty to look forward to outside the gym, too.

Yet even in retirement, Nibarger has no desire to step away from the volleyball court.

“I feel refreshed,” Nibarger said. “I really feel like I’m coaching better than I have my whole career.”

Made for more than winning volleyball matches

The latest example of Nibarger’s staying power is a Circle team led by eight seniors determined to make their final season memorable.

Senior setter Cate Rogers directs the Thunderbirds’ 5-1 offense with 713 assists, distributing the ball effectively enough for five different hitters to reach 100 kills.

Senior Valerie Will, a home-school student who joined the program in the spring, has been a welcome surprise with a team-high 262 kills. Sophomore Perry Haines, senior middle hitters Ameilia Mills and Mackenzie Wittlake, and sophomore Jolie Tucker give Circle multiple attacking options.

Along with Rogers, Will, Mills, Wittlake and Avery Wartick, seniors Leila Kelso, Allison Kowaleski and Payton Maclaskey have helped return Circle to state after a two-year absence.

The fifth-seeded Thunderbirds enter on a seven-match winning streak and will open pool play at Hutchinson Community College against No. 4 Eudora (32-7) at 10 a.m. Thursday. They’ll face No. 1 Clay Center (36-4) at 1 p.m. and No. 8 Topeka Hayden (25-12) at 2 p.m., with the top two teams advancing to Friday’s semifinals.

The possibility of winning the program’s first state championship remains tantalizing.

Circle has reached the state semifinals five times under Nibarger but has never advanced to the championship match. The 2006 team came particularly close, entering the semifinals at 42-1 before suffering an upset that ended its championship dreams.

Nibarger still believes that team was capable of winning it all.

But those near misses don’t haunt her.

She would love to win a championship. Her competitive fire still burns as fiercely as ever. But she simply doesn’t need a trophy to validate the career she’s devoted to Circle.

Perhaps it’s fitting that this year’s team has embraced a theme that captures so much of what Nibarger has tried to teach her players over the years: “Made for More.”

The words are meant to inspire the Thunderbirds on the volleyball court, but Nibarger believes their significance reaches far beyond the sport.

“I’ve always wanted to teach the kids that they are made for so much more,” Nibarger said. “Like there is so much more ahead in your lives than state volleyball. You try to teach them about commitment and discipline and expectations, just all of those life lessons. Hopefully they’re getting that from our program.”

There may be no better evidence that those lessons have lasted than the women sitting beside her on the bench.

Former players who became mothers. Mothers whose daughters now play for Nibarger. Generations of Circle families whose relationships with their coach have outlasted the seasons they shared.

Eventually, there will be a final match. Another coach will inherit the program Nibarger spent her life building.

But at 62, with a state tournament ahead and grandchildren on the way, she’s in no hurry to find out when that day will come.

She has already won more than 1,000 volleyball matches. The people who have remained in her life are why she keeps coming back.

“I know the end is coming at some point,” Nibarger said. “But I still love it. And it has made my heart completely full.”