Rose Obunaga named new Northern volleyball coach

The Montana State University-Northern volleyball team will be starting the 2017 season before you know it, but now at least, the Skylights will know who their head coach will be.

That's because MSU-N formally announced its decision to offer the job to Rose Obunaga last Thursday, who promptly accepted the position. While the search process was narrowed down by Northern athletic director Christian Oberquell to two candidates, when it was all said and done, the choice was Obunaga, a former Olympic volleyball player, who has spent that last six seasons as the head coach at Stephens College, an NAIA program in Missouri.

"I was really excited because this was an opportunity that I was looking for," Obunaga said of how she felt when she got the call. "I called the athletic director right after he called me and accepted it."

"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."

"Rose is a very technical, hands-on coach," MSU-N Oberquell said. "And she related very well with the team members. She brings a wealth of experience and enthusiasm to the program."

Obunaga takes over a program that was 6-16 overall a season ago, as well as 5-7 in the Frontier Conference. She said that she is going to get to Havre as soon as she could, but that ultimately, she would arrive to take charge of the program sometime in July.

"I am going to put my two weeks notice in at my current job right away," Obunaga said. "If they need me, I will stay for that time, if not, I will come as soon as I can. It may not be until near the end of July, but if I can, I want to come earlier. I am excited to get to work. I think this program has a lot of potential. A few years ago, it was near the top of the conference, so I want to see what I can do to help it return to that."

If playing ability has anything to do with coaching, then it appears that the Skylights have made the right choice, because Obunaga dominated throughout all four years of her collegiate career. At Missouri State University-West Plains, a junior college, Obunaga was a two-time All-American. She then attended Central Methodist for her junior year and also earned NAIA All-American honors, before being first-team NAIA All-American as a senior at Columbia College.

Yet the highlight of the resume for Obunaga has to be her two appearances in the Olympics, playing for the Kenyan national team in both the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games. However, as a coach, this won't be her first rodeo. At Stephens College, she coached in the American Midwest Conference, which is one of the most difficult for volleyball in the NAIA.

"I think the first thing will be to get the entire team on the same page," Obunaga said. "For you to have the good team, you need to have players that have the same target and that is to win and to be competitive. Obviously, you want to get people who have talent and things like that, but building good team chemistry and getting everyone on the same page is very important, too. So we will look for talent, but also for certain kinds of players that will fit into that."

Obunaga, who lives in Missouri, said she was excited about her move to Montana, even though she was given fair warning about the cold.

"I am looking forward to it," Obunaga said about living in Havre. "I have been warned about the wind and the cold, but I think I can make it. I will have to load up as much as I can."