For 32 years, the life of Debby Colberg has been consumed by Sacramento State women’s volleyball, but starting in January 2008, everything will change.

Earlier this year, Colberg announced that she would be retiring after the 2007 season. With a career filled with victories, honors and awards, including 828 career victories, two national titles, 20 NCAA appearances, 18 conference championships, and 17 coach of the year awards, Colberg has had her hands full. She will also be inducted into the American Volleyball Coaches Association Hall of Fame next month.

Most recently, Colberg was named the Pacific Region Coach of the Year by the AVCA. An impressive honor, the Pacific Region is home to such teams as Stanford, Cal and UCLA.

Although Colberg has spent a good portion of her life coaching volleyball, she wanted to retire and finally get a chance to do the things she never had time to do before.

Colberg has been so busy running the Sac State program that she plans on relaxing once her retirement begins.

“I think for the first year I just want to have it completely free and sort of investigate different options of what I want to do. Nothing in terms of money but maybe volunteering my time,” Colberg said.

Colberg would also like to get away from the volleyball scene and spend more time with her family, including her parents.

“I want to spend a lot of time with my parents, who are obviously elderly, and help them out in any way that I can and just be available for them,” Colberg said.

One benefit of having so much free time is that Colberg is looking forward to traveling with her husband, Gary.

“I want to go to places we haven’t been able to go to since we’ve been so busy traveling with volleyball,” she said.

“We have some good friends that are retired, and Gary is retired so they have been kind of waiting for me so we could all go places together,” Colberg said.

Although Colberg has already traveled to many exotic places including Europe, China, Japan and Korea, she is interested in visiting other parts of the world as well.

“I would really like to go to Australia and New Zealand. I’ve never been to any islands like the Caribbean,” Colberg said.

Colberg is also interested in trying outdoor activities offered in other countries.

“There is a hike across England and Ireland that you can walk. Doing something like that might be fun,” Colberg said.

Traveling isn’t the only thing Colberg has on her mind. There are other basic aspects of her life that she has been neglecting for a while, and looks forward to the ability to take care of them.

“I want to do some real simple things around the house, like I want to have a garden. I want to maybe learn to do some things craft-wise that I haven’t had time for,” Colberg said.

Colberg and her husband are looking at her new free time as a chance to finally clean up around the house and take care of matters of the home.

“We want to fix up our house that we’ve sort of neglected for a while. We want to get it back into really nice shape,” Colberg said.

For three decades, Colberg’s routine has been almost the same. Most of her year was spent at Sac State either during the volleyball season or preparing for the next.

“It is going to be so different that it’s going to be hard to imagine I think,” she said. “You do have some off times in volleyball, but you always know that you have something to do so it will be really different.”

“I think it’s going to be really strange to come back over here and not have keys to the building and that kind of stuff where I’ve had access for 32 years. Being an outsider is going to be very different,” Colberg said.

Although Mr. and Mrs. Colberg plan on doing a lot of traveling together, much of their marriage has been spent apart or traveling for volleyball. Colberg believes it will be a weird transition spending so much time at home.

“We’re both super independent so I’m not worried traveling or something without him … I think it’s going to be nice to be able to do some things together, but on the other hand it doesn’t bother either one of us to do things apart,” Colberg said.

Gary has missed opportunities to spend time with his wife due to her tough schedule, but he also realizes the big difference they will face when they are both retired together and home at the same time.

“Well it’s going to be a challenge. I mean we got married in 1974 and she started coaching at Sac State in 1976, so most of our marriage has been around volleyball,” he said.

Colberg will not be coaching at the collegiate level, but she has considered the option of coaching at other levels instead.

“If I miss coaching then I might coach a little juniors team just for the fun of it,” Colberg said.

Colberg dislikes some of the aspects of collegiate athletics, so coaching a juniors team would be a good fit. Colberg also spent many years coaching at the junior level.

“I coached club for 20 years straight so I am very familiar with how it works and I almost like club better in some ways. It doesn’t have all the rules and restrictions that college coaching does. It is more pure sport as opposed to business that college athletics is,” she said.

“I really dislike a lot of the things around college athletics because it loses its pureness, it is not people out there always competing because they have a love of sport, which is what I hope club would be, particularly with the younger players,” Colberg said.

One aspect of coaching that Colberg knows she will miss is the relationships she has built with coaches, players and faculty of Sac State.

“I anticipate that there are going to be things I’m going to miss a whole lot and I think those will all definitely be centered around the people that I will miss. I will certainly miss being around (assistant coach) Weidi and (associate head coach) Ruben on a daily basis and I will miss the other professional friends I have in the department.”

“There is a lot that goes with coaching that I will miss including the association with the players, although they change over the years, I think I’ve learned a lot from them,” Colberg said.

Coaching the Hornets may not be a part of Colberg’s life anymore, but she does plan on becoming a full-time Hornet fan.

“I’ll definitely come back to watch so if I am in town and not traveling I will be here,” Colberg said.

Colberg may be looking into coaching a junior women’s team down the road, but Gary is hoping he can persuade his wife into coaching a men’s team.

“If I can persuade her into it I would like to see her coach a men’s team. The men’s side has been overlooked. I think she still has a lot to offer as a coach,” Gary said.

Colberg spent 32 years at Sac State coaching the Hornets, but her time here started even before 1976. In 1970 Colberg graduated Sac State with a bachelor’s in physical education and in 1977 finished her master’s in the same program.

Colberg has been around many of the same people during her entire stint at Sac State and knows the people is what she will miss most after she retires.

“There are a lot of people in this department that mean a lot to me. They are like a second family,” Colberg said.

Alicia de la Garza can be reached at state