Hornet volleyball has become the most victorious sports program at Sacramento State. The program has aced eight straight Big Sky conference championships and has not incurred a single home-court loss in Big Sky play since 1999.

-Much of the team’s success over the last decade has been because of the university’s longest tenured head coach, Debby Colberg.

“It seems like I’ve been wanting to do this job since infancy,” Colberg said. “I was born a jock.”Over the last 29 seasons, Colberg has accumulated a record of 743-269, making her only the seventh active head coach to pass the 700 wins mark. She is also the sixth winningest active head coach in NCAA Division I.

Colberg emerged as a jock at a time when there was literally nothing for female athletes. “There was not any opportunity for us women,” said Colberg, who went through high school without playing any organized sports.

-“The first year I came to Sac State (as a freshman in 1966) was the first year they offered intercollegiate sports for women,” Colberg said. “We wore P.E. clothes for uniforms.”

Colberg had never played volleyball until her freshman year of college.

-“When I got to college I wanted to do it all,” she said.

-Born and raised in Sacramento, Colberg stayed in the area to teach and coach. She started at Churchill Intermediate School in the San Juan Unified School District. Her first opportunity to blow a whistle came in 1975 at Rio Americano High School.

Over three years of coaching the Rio Raiders, Colberg won three league championships and two section titles.

Brad Alexander can be reached at [email protected].