Quite the journey for MSU-N volleyball candidate

Havre and Montana State University-Northern are a long way from Stephens College in Missouri. But they are even farther away from Kakamega, Kenya, where Rose Obunaga is originally from.

Yet Obunaga is ready to make another journey, as she said Thursday. Obunaga is one of two finalists for the vacant head volleyball coaching position at MSU-Northern.

"It's an NAIA school, which I'm very familiar with," Obunaga said when asked why she applied for the Skylight job. "Secondly, the program looks to be growing and I'd like to come here and continue that and make a very good future for this program. Another big reason is this town. I grew up in a small village in Kenya, and the town fits our goals as a family and my goals as a coach."

If Obunaga is to be the next head coach at Northern, her journey to Havre will have been an interesting one. She grew up playing all kinds of sports in Kenya, but fell in love with volleyball, a sport she says she played exclusively by the time she finished high school.

"It's a favorite sport in Kenya," she said. "I grew up playing it outside. As a family, we would just play against each other with no net or anything. But once my dad discovered how much we were into it, we went out and got a little net, and I just grew to love it from there."

Her love of the game would eventually help her become a dominant player in her native country, and a member of the Kenya National Team. She played in two Olympics, first in the 2000 Sydney Games, and again in the 2004 Athens Games.

"It was a great experience," she said of playing in the Olympics. "There's something beautiful about being in the Olympics. It's the human race. We're all different, we're from all over the world, and we don't even speak the same languages. But we're all there together, spending time together, getting to know each other. For a girl like me, it was just so much fun, and such a great experience."

The Olympics also helped Obunaga start to learn the craft of coaching volleyball.

"Every day, I would go watch the other teams practice," she said of her Olympic experience. "I watched the Italian team, the U.S. teams, the Russian teams, and it was amazing how everybody had a different approach. They were all going for the same goal, but they all did things so differently. It was an eye-opener for me, and I learned so much through that experience."

She was a dominant player already when she came to the United States, where she first played junior college. Obunaga left quite the legacy at Missouri State University-West Plains. The two-time, first-team NJCAA All-American finished her two-year stint at MSU-West Plains ranked second all-time in total blocks (463), solo blocks (178), kills (1,302), attacking percentage (.444) and points earned (1,844). In 2009, Obunaga was inducted into the MSU-West Plains Athletics Hall of Fame. She then attended Central Methodist (Mo.) where she earned first-team NAIA All-American honors. In 2005, she transferred to Columbia College and helped the Cougars to a 35-4 overall record and runner-up finish at the NAIA National Tournament. Leading the team in kills, kills/set, blocks, solo blocks and blocks/set, Obunaga added to her long list of accolades with first-team NAIA All-American and All-Tournament honors.

She would go on to serve as a student assistant volleyball coach at Columbia, an NAIA volleyball powerhouse, while completing her bachelor's degree in Business Administration (2006). In 2011, Obunaga completed a master's degree in Public Service Administration from the University of Evansville, where she served as a graduate assistant coach. Other coaching opportunities for Obunaga have included a volunteer position at Washington University in St. Louis and a head coaching position with H2 St. Louis Volleyball Club U17s. The last six years, she's been the head coach at Stephens, an all-female college, that plays in one of the toughest NAIA volleyball conferences in the country.

"When I got there, we were at the bottom (of the conference)," she said of her time with the Stars. "But we've improved every year, and now we're much more in the middle of the pack."

Teaching and improving is something that's very important to Obunaga, who has been in the U.S. for 12 years now. She says she never stops teaching volleyball, and embraces that challenge of teaching every single day.

"If you teach them the right things, they'll be better players, and they'll be better equipped to go out and execute," she said. "I also believe in self-discipline and competitiveness, and when you have those things, it's then about finding the best avenues to go out and achieve your goals."

Obunaga also keeps her recruiting philosophies close to her heart as well.

"Everybody wants size and talent," she said. "But I also want players with character and who believe in being good teammates. Players who believe in good sportsmanship. Those things are very important to me.

"I also think this school is a great place for players to come and be successful," she added about recruiting to MSU-Northern. "It's a small school where they can be successful in their studies, but even though it's a smaller school, there's a variety of majors for them to choose from. And this community, I think it's one that would be a good fit for them."

And Obunaga is hoping to be a good fit for the Skylights. She says she knows the landscape of Frontier Conference volleyball, as she has coached and played at an elite level in the NAIA, much like the Frontier is. And overall, she's committed to not only helping Northern volleyball grow and succeed, but also continuing to do the same for the sport in general.

"I'm a hard worker and a competitive coach," she said. "I want to come here and set goals, and achieve those goals, including winning a championship. I also want to help the players succeed, while also continuing to help grow the sport. And I think this (Northern) is a perfect fit for me to do that."