JAYNE GIBSON McHUGH spent the last hour of her life celebrating with her latest volleyball team. Although unable to be at the game, the players from Valor Christian High School in Colorado raced to the hospital to give McHugh the game ball from their fourth consecutive state championship.
A short time after they left, their coach of six years passed away following a brief bout with leukemia. She was 65.
That McHugh’s life ended with a volleyball championship is somehow fitting. Although she was many things, a wife, mother and teacher, she was known to the public for her outstanding volleyball career.
A three-time All-America middle block at University of the Pacific (1979, 1980, 1981) and a 1988 U.S. Olympic team member in Seoul. McHugh returned to Pacific as an assistant coach in 1989 and served as head volleyball coach from 2001-2005.
Throughout her career, she displayed intensity and competitiveness, but friends, coaches and former players also describe McHugh as funny and loyal.
She was known for her passion for volleyball, but to say McHugh was a born volleyball player isn’t quite accurate.
Making an impact
“I remember recruiting her from Arvada High School in Colorado, and it had just won the volleyball and basketball state championships,” said Terry Liskevych, who built Pacific’s program as its coach from 1976-1984. “Jayne played all sports. She was a gangly kid. You could tell she was a great athlete. She was just lacking the skills we were looking for. We were just starting to get good, and she was part of that group.”
She became, Liskevych said, “a great, great volleyball player.”
She made an immediate impact at Pacific, remembered teammate Patty Berg-Burnett, another middle blocker who was a junior when McHugh arrived as a freshman.
“Terry taught all of us to be volleyball players,” Burnett said. “He recruited athletes. Jaynie and I were very competitive with each other. It was never spoken, but we were always competitive, and it made each of us better.”
Off the court, the two middle blockers were best friends. So close were they that Burnett flew to Colorado two days before her friend passed away. McHugh’s son called to say McHugh was failing and wanted to see Burnett.
“When I saw her Thursday, her family was in the room with her,” Burnett said. “We were all talking and laughing. She could hear everything and understood what was being said. She recognized my voice and knew I was there.”
Burnett visited again on Friday, Nov. 14, the last meeting of friends of more than 40 years who took different paths after playing at Pacific.
Burnett became a teacher and volleyball coach at Tokay High School. McHugh became a member of the U.S. national team, coached by Liskevych, and played in the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
‘She loved UOP’
After the games, McHugh returned to Stockton, her husband Tom’s hometown, and made her way back to Pacific.
“She wanted to stay connected to the university and (assistant coach) Steve Lowe had just left,” said John Dunning, coach from 1985-2000. “It was an easy thing for her to join the staff. She was a real Tiger. She loved UOP.”
McHugh had the same passion she’d had as a player who reached the Final Four in all four of her years at Pacific and demonstrated it in when she played in scrimmages.
Dunning remembers her questioning his calls as the referee of those scrimmages, calling him out in front of the team.
If taken aback, Dunning embraced the passion McHugh brought to Pacific, one of the elite college volleyball programs. His style was calm and thoughtful, and McHugh’s aggressive approach was a good complement.
“She had experienced college and post-college volleyball at a very high level, and there are qualities, that if you don’t have, you can’t do that,” Dunning said. “She had confidence, competitiveness, drive, the ability to fight through pain and adversity, all the things you read about big time athletes that are similar.
“College athletes look up to an Olympian, copy her, watch how she acted. She set an example from the start.”
McHugh found her niche as a coach teaching skills and trying to ingrain a competitive spirit to raise the level of play.
Later, she became a successful recruiter.
From player to coach
“She’s the reason I went to Pacific,” said middle blocker Tracy Chambers Ayers (1996-2000). “I wanted to be trained by an Olympian, the best middle blocking coach. She didn’t have a motto, but she used to say, ‘It’s your net. Don’t let anyone else beat you.’”
Chambers remembers facing McHugh across the net in practices. She was 19 or 20 and McHugh was in her 30s and winning the battles.
“She taught the game in a way that made sense for my position,” Chambers Ayers said. “I coach kids and make them learn the game from a different perspective, from all angles, seeing both antennas, inside and out.”
“She had experienced college and post-college volleyball at a very high level. … She had confidence, competitiveness, drive, the ability to fight through pain and adversity, all the things you read about big time athletes that are similar.”
John Dunning, former UOP volleyball coach
More than that, McHugh instilled a drive to be the best.
“Jaynie was so competitive that she delivered confidence,” Chambers Ayers said. “She gave us feedback, taught us to go beyond our limitations. If you made errors in practice, it didn’t matter. She instilled confidence to be out there, to think no one was better than you, that you were unstoppable.”
McHugh’s approach didn’t work for all players, and it may have hampered her as the head coach at Pacific, and at St. Mary’s High School, where she coached from 2013-2018.
She found a gentler approach over the years, Dunning said, and going home to Colorado and coaching Valor Christian was the right fit.
“Her current team loved her,” Dunning said. “The picture of her holding the game ball shows how she evolved. That’s a pretty cool thing.”
Though volleyball occupied a good part of her life, McHugh was married for more than 40 years to Tom, who died in April after a brief illness, was the mother of sons Ryan and Jack, a devoted friend and a teacher, who spent several years at Annunciation School.
“She was a great lady,” Liskevych said.
This story originally appeared in Stocktonia.
