Photo credit: CV Yearbook
By Karaleigh Harris ‘25
Motherly.
That word describes Casey Banh in more ways than one.
Casey Banh, formerly known by many as Casey Yee or Coach Yee, has a place in her heart for her former athletes. She is also proud of the coaches she worked with for continuing her former role as the Conestoga Valley Gerald Huesken Middle School girls volleyball coach.
Ms. Banh started her job at Conestoga Valley while also starting her coaching job the same day.
“I wasn’t expecting right off the bat to start a new job plus via head coach,” said Ms. Banh.
Ms. Banh’s ideas and morals about coaching are as follows: “Not only did we want to create good volleyball players, but we also knew that, you know, outside of volleyball how can they just be a good person.” She loves winning but feels like character is more important to work on.
Ms. Banh’s favorite thing to do when coaching was to have mini tournaments. She would mix the A and B team, making them multiple mini teams, and then would watch the players play in mini tournaments.
“We’re all one CV team,” Ms. Banh said. “That was probably one of my favorites. Just seeing the girls hype about anything, just showing that they’re liking the sport and enjoying themselves.”
Ms Banh tried to help all of her athletes have a good experience with the sport, which included trying not to have favorites.
“Our personality may mesh better with another personality,” said Ms. Banh. “But I wouldn’t say I had favorites.”
“I tried to do my best to make sure that every kid has a good experience and was growing,” commented Ms. Banh. “Whether they were starting on the A team or the B team.”
While coaching, she had learned that not a lot of her girls had played a sport before middle school. Because of this, she would have to do drills on how to swing and had a particularly hard time with teaching how to serve. Instead of being frustrated with this, she found it interesting.
“It was cool to see just growth in girls who maybe have never played a sport before, period,” Ms. Banh added. “And now all of a sudden they were just killing it on the volleyball court. So it was pretty cool.”
It was bittersweet for her to see her players go off and succeed in high school and then even later in life.
“It’s so sad sometimes, but it also makes me proud,” responded Ms. Banh. “I can’t believe I knew you when you were 12 years old, and now you’re 18, or now you’re an adult so it’s pretty cool.”
For her and the other middle school coaches, it is all about progress. She loved watching her athletes play together and learn new skills.
Her favorite teams to play against are Garden Spot and Cedar Crest. She likes that CV plays them from middle school up.
“Especially since that’s a team that that we play at the high school too,” Ms. Banh said. “So it’s cool to play against them at junior high and then seeing how we both progress at the high school level.”
Since Ms. Banh has retired from coaching, she is proud of her former fellow coaches who have continued to uphold the same values she did.
“The values of building a person to be an all around good person besides being a good volleyball player are still there, which is fantastic,” Ms. Banh noted.
Ms. Banh also praised the new head coach, Leonard Harris, saying, “The cool thing about Coach Len is he and I have the same coaching philosophy, we were on the same page.”
“It was awesome to have him as my assistant coach who had the same values, morals, and goals,” Ms. Banh added. “Plus, we would giggle about silly things because even when times get frustrating, we just have to laugh sometimes and he was a good person to laugh with.”
Ms. Banh and Mr. Harris have been coaching with each other for many years before Ms. Banh retired. He looks forward to continuing coaching the middle school team, as she begins to become a coach for her new family.
“I wanted to be a mom because Mr. Banh and I are a team and we wanted another team member,” Ms. Banh stated. “I’m excited to see my son grow to be the best person.”
It’s clear from the way she talks about the team that she’s motherly; she was a mom before she even knew it.