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Friday, 27 May 2011 11:50

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News-Gazette Photo/Andrew Sullivan

St. Cloud’s Ettie Singleton (center) holds her Dean Cherry Osceola County Coach of the Year Award with Athletic Director Chad Ansbaugh (left) and volleyball players, from left, Steffi Rodriguez, Terryn O’Donnell, Sarah Sullivan, Faith Udstad and Brittney Walker.

Former Kowboy thrives at St. Cloud
By Ken Jackson
Sports Writer
When St. Cloud volleyball and track coach Ettie Singleton was named the Dean Cherry Osceola County Coach of the Year award winner, it screamed one thing:
Osceola County is raising some fine educators and coaches, and doing an equally good job of keeping them in the fold.


A year after St. Cloud alum and Poinciana girls basketball coach Jamerson Jones won, Singleton, a 1991 Osceola High grad, was honored.
She’s the first female to win since Osceola’s softball and cross country coach, Charlene Davids, nearly two decades ago.
“This is really awesome, I’m excited and shocked,” Singleton, 37, said. “I had some really great people standing up there with me at the banquet.”
Also nominated were former winner George Coffey (softball), of Osceola, Gateway High’s Vonnie Kochensparger (swimming and water polo), Harmony’s Stephanie Jones (girls soccer), Poinciana’s Bryan McLoughlin (track), Liberty’s Ray Hines (girls track and weightlifting) and Celebration’s Lisa Gnapp (competitive cheer).
The nomination was old hat for Singleton, who switched to St. Cloud this past summer after 14 years at Gateway, coaching mostly volleyball and track with short stints as varsity girls soccer and JV swimming and basketball coach. She was nominated by Gateway four times in her tenure.
Her track team this spring took 12 athletes to the regional meet, but her biggest impact was made in the Lady Bulldogs volleyball program. After years of dormancy and just four wins the season before, St. Cloud won 17 matches and was a factor in the 4A District 6 and Orange Belt Conference races.
The improvement in those programs in just one year highlighted Singleton’s impact, said Bulldogs’ Athletic Director Chad Ansbaugh.
“That doesn’t happen by accident. Her effect on the program in one season was amazing,” he said. “And in track, it was the same kids that were there from the year before, they were just waiting for the right kind of leadership.
“There are great coaches in this county, but she’s a top-notch teacher as well. That’s most important and why she stands out. She’s an easy coach to support.”
Her education tour of duty has never taken her out of Central Florida. The Lansing, Mich., native who moved to Kissimmee in 1982, then Ettie Davis, earned 12 varsity letters at OHS: four in basketball, four in track as a sprinter and hurdler, three in swimming and one in volleyball. She moved on to UCF and earned her bachelor’s degree in physical education.
“When I left high school, I knew I wanted to coach, and planned to be a P.E. teacher,” she said.
Around that time she married her high school sweetheart from OHS, Rob Singleton. Neither knew the other was an athlete, she said.
“We were two jocks who met in biology class,” she said. “He might have known that I ran track, and he played football and soccer, but I didn’t know.”
It’s with his support that makes it possible for her to commit to her kids year-round, Singleton said.
“He’s the most patient person on Earth,” she said, noting that open gym for next volleyball season has already begun.
Singleton said that while she was grateful to get a job in her hometown after her UCF graduation in 1995, she never imagined she’d be coaching for her high-school rivals. But, she said, the education industry has taught her to, “just go with the flow.”
“If you told me back then I’d be teaching at St. Cloud, even at Gateway, I wouldn’t have believed you,” she said. “St. Cloud is a great school, but Gateway was better than I could have imagined as well.”
Singleton mentioned a laundry list of influences and people who shaped her personally and professionally through the years, beginning with Gerry Duscharne, her elementary school P.E. teacher.
“I tried to walk on the volleyball team at UCF and (Coach) Laura Smith told me I’d be better as a coach,” she said. “Then there’s people like (former Osceola volleyball coach and current dean) Charlene Lackey and George Coffey, (former Osceola coach and current Poinciana athletic director) Mal Harpell and (former OHS and Poinciana assistant track coach) Mike Fletcher, and I’ll never forget (former Gateway AD) Dave Ridenour for hiring me and (track coach) Brian Bengtson for letting me help out. And Bryan (McLoughlin, her classmate
at Osceola) and Vonnie (Kochensparger) deserved to win this award long ago.”
Kochensparger was thrilled to see her friend win the award.
“I am happy for Ettie, she deserves it,” Kochensparger said. “She works really hard.”
Through the years, the job has become all about the students, Singleton said.
“A lot of people say ‘thank you’ to me, and it’s always nice to get recognized for all the free work you do after school,” she said. “The lives you influence through coaching, that’s what’s amazing to me.”
The Dean Cherry Award is named for the longtime director of staff development for the Osceola County School District, also a former basketball coach, who passed away in 2001.
 

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