Pictured here with Appalachian State Director of Athletics Doug Gillin, New Palestine’s Sarah Rumely Noble is in her first season as head volleyball coach of the Mountaineers.
Photo courtesy of Appalachian State Athletics
It was just going to be a matter of time before Sarah Rumely Noble became a head coach.
Her coaching career dates back longer than her time as a Division I assistant volleyball coach at North Texas, Wake Forest, Arkansas and LSU.
It goes back much further, all the way to her roots, growing up in Hancock County.
A native of New Palestine, Rumely Noble played in New Palestine youth leagues, went to grade school at St. Michael’s, in Greenfield, and played high school sports at Indianapolis Scecina.
Influenced by her coaches, which includes her father, Bill Rumely – currently an assistant volleyball coach at New Palestine High School — Rumely Noble said she always had the passion to coach.
When she was a high school player at Scecina, she was helping her dad coach St. Michael’s seventh and eighth grade teams. When she went to the University Kentucky – where she had an All-American career as a setter – she was coaching club volleyball, too.
Even when she played professionally in France, she was coaching youth club volleyball.
“I didn’t speak the language, but with the universal language of volleyball I was able to communicate with them,” she said.
A perfect fit for the coaching industry, she found her perfect fit earlier this year.
“(Coaching has) been in my blood, with my dad coaching me in every sport growing up. I think it was kind of a natural transition. When I got done playing professionally, I knew it was something I wanted to do,” Rumely Noble said. “I wanted to give back to the sport and coach. That’s when I got my first assistant job.
“I signed a contract in March or April (in 2010), when I was playing professionally in France, to come and coach at North Texas, which didn’t start until June 1. I knew it was always something I wanted to do, but it stemmed from growing up around my dad being a coach and being able to coach with him early on.”
In January, Appalachian State named Rumely Noble to be its head volleyball coach. She had been an assistant coach the past five seasons at LSU and was the Tigers’ associate head coach in 2021.
She takes over a program that plays in the Sun Belt Conference. A year ago, the Mountaineers were 7-22.
Rumely Noble is excited about getting things turned around, using the knowledge she’s gained from her mentors.
“I was pretty strategic in the different jobs I took along the way. I had some different mentors and role models and learned a lot from the people I got the opportunity to be around,” she said. “If I got to the point to where I wanted to be a head coach, I wanted to be prepared. I think over the last 3-4 years, I’ve known I wanted to be a head coach, but I was waiting on the right opportunity. I was working under a great mentor (Fran Flory at LSU) and I really wasn’t in any rush.”
The timing was right in 2022. Flory retired after last season. Then, Rumely Noble found the right fit at App State.
Just six matches into the season, the Mountaineers are nearly halfway to last year’s win total. App State is off to a 3-3 start, which included a 3-0 victory over California Baptist in the coach’s debut.
“It’s been awesome,” Rumely Noble said, earlier this summer as she was preparing for her first season as a head coach. “I have a great staff and Boone, N.C., is amazing. The athletic department, everyone has been great, and super-supportive. It’s been busy, but it has been fun, a fun whirlwind.”
Rumely Noble said her coaching philosophy is quite similar to the approach of her father and others she played for or coached with from her time as a youth softball player to her time as an assistant volleyball coach.
“My philosophy is wanting to develop people through the sport of volleyball. We talk a lot in our gym about creating a culture of excellence. We’re going to be excellent at everything we do, from volleyball to academics, to the relationships with our family and friends to just who we are and becoming,” she said. “For me, volleyball is just the avenue that I get to build people. I think that comes from my influences growing up, my dad, to the people I have been around during my coaching journey.
“When I was playing at Kentucky, I had some really amazing coaches on that staff that cared about me as a person, beyond who I was as a volleyball player. That was a big reason I got into coaching at the collegiate level, I wanted to recreate that experience for other athletes.”
