Nobody felt Meghan Lucas’ impact on Butler girls volleyball more than her daughters
Mother knows best.
It took a few extra years for Gabby Lucas to accept that.
One of four daughters to play for their mother and longtime Butler girls volleyball coach, Meghan, Gabby gave off a sour look on the court at times.
“Whenever I played for my mom, I was always just upset because I thought she was coming after me,” said Gabby, the second-oldest sister. “She wanted me to be better than what I was putting on the floor ... with my body language and my facial expression.
“I was like, ‘That doesn’t matter! That doesn’t matter!’”
Her senior teammates at Grove City College didn’t take kindly to the way Gabby responded to adversity as a freshman. After a heart-to-heart with Meghan, Gabby’s outlook changed.
“I even have it on a board in my classroom — it just says, ‘Find the good,’” said Gabby, now an instructional practitioner at Connoquenessing Elementary School. “In every situation from then on out ... I just find the good.”
This past season, Gabby served as an assistant for Meghan and coached the Butler junior varsity team. The mother-daughter coaching path will intersect only for that season as Meghan retired from coaching after this past season.
Meghan’s coaching resume spans more than 30 years. She started at Kiski Area before her children were born. The youngest of her five, Sarah, is a senior at Butler and will continue her volleyball career next fall at Butler County Community College.
“It was kind of cool to have a daughter on the coaching staff with me and then a daughter on the team, as well,” Meghan said. “(I’m) kind of ready to pass the torch.”
Meghan’s choice to step away is a bittersweet one for Gabby.
“It’s kind of a cool moment because as I (was) going into my first year, she was going into her last year,” she said. “I had some guiding steps along the way.”
Meghan coached and Gabby played alongside her two other sisters. Maria graduated in 2019 and played at Slippery Rock University, while Sophia graduated two years later and is in her senior season at Clarion University, her mother’s alma mater. Meghan also has a son, Isaiah, who graduated from Butler in 2018.
“I always coached because I loved the game, but I also loved mentoring the kids, the girls that I coached,” Meghan said. “I really kind of thought in my mind that someday they would all play and so I thought, ‘Well, you know, it would be kind of cool to coach my kids.’ And it was a blessing that I was able to coach my four daughters.
“We have a picture of Sarah as a toddler in the ball cart. That was her play pen. We’d just throw her in the ball cart and go. I was pregnant with all of them while still coaching, which was kind of neat, and then they all grew up in the gym. ... They loved it.”
Gabby recalled the relationships she’d formed with her mother’s older players.
“From 2006-14, those groups of girls, they just loved me like a little sister,” Gabby said. “They would do my hair. They would let me listen to their iPods. They just cared for me and were babysitters for me, and for the rest of my siblings, as well.
“I was usually the one that would go to tournaments with Mom and stay with her (for) the day. She didn’t really have to worry about taking care of me.”
A good number of those players followed in Meghan’s footsteps, showing the impact she had on the program.
“The best memories would be of the relationships I had with players who have gone on to also coach or teach,” Meghan said. “I still hear from them today. That’s kind of the sweet part of coaching is when you’re in the thick of it during seasons ... it sometimes can get chaotic.
“It’s when you get a phone call or a text ... from a former athlete who wants to share with you, like, ‘Hey, I got my Master’s degree.’”
Meghan isn’t done with volleyball. She’ll almost certainly be around to help Gabby continue to learn the ropes with coaching, possibly still at Butler, while also seeing the game from a different perch.
“I started officiating two years ago, as well, so I’m going to definitely still be around the sport,” Meghan said.
