Kohan Checks a Line Off Her List
She has no intention of being unprepared for the next step
Mike Brohard
She’s not one to be unprepared.
For example, take this Christmas. A list maker by nature due to her mother, Emily Kohan had two constructed, she just didn’t know which one to put into action.
“This year was weird because my Christmas list was based on are we staying or moving? Two different lists,” she said. “It was having go buy plane tickets for people if we’re moving.”
Which she is not. As of Tuesday, the longtime Colorado State assistant was officially the head coach of the volleyball team, taking over for her mentor, the legendary Tom Hilbert. Through her seven years of serving as his assistant, Kohan was given more and more responsibility, was exposed to more of the duties expected of a head coach.
Basically, everything up to actually being the head coach. She was informed of the decision this past Friday, and an immediate wave of relief and excitement overcame her. She felt she would sleep great.
“Then I laid down at night, and I was, ‘oh my gosh, there’s so much to do. There are decisions to be made,’” she said. “It’s not walking into the office and asking Tom what he wants me to do. It’s me walking in with an agenda and saying, ‘alright guys, here’s what it is.’
“I woke up at 4 a.m., and it was let’s go and I started working my agenda.”
She made more lists. This comes as no surprise to anybody who knows her. Not the players, all of whom she helped recruit. Not the staff, of which she will retain intact
Bri Olmstead, the director of operations who has been on staff for 16 seasons and played for Hilbert at CSU, knows what’s coming with Kohan in charge.
“She has a really high capacity for work and life and everything in between, and she is meticulously organized,” Olmstead said. “She keeps on task at a level not many people can achieve.
“I have seen her lists. They are long and detailed. It’s pretty incredible. I would imagine there are some lists coming my way. I have lists in my head, but I know there are many coming. That’s exciting because it means she has ideas and is forward thinking and planning things out.”
It is her way of staying on top of things, allowing nothing to slide through the cracks. There are daily lists, but also for a week, monthly and long term. They are for work and at home.
She and her husband, Patrick, have a young daughter, Evie, and they are expecting their second child in May. It is a daughter. Kohan had to know because she had to plan the design of the new arrival's room and how to dress the new addition to the family.
This is the way Kohan has always been. She was this way growing up, even as a player at Swink High School. And later as a player at Iowa. Most definitely when she took her first assistant’s job at Oregon State. That was 12 years ago and landing that first job was a check off her list.
It’s not just the lists, it is the follow through for Kohan. After a meeting, there is likely to be a follow-up email or text about what was discussed. For instance, she went back and found an email she sent to herself 10 years ago, reminding her of her goal of becoming the head coach of a national champion.
But it’s much deeper than being organized.
“It’s clear communication and trying to create a best-laid plan for what success is and one thing I want to keep evolving with is being able to adjust when it doesn’t go according to plan,” she said. “They are on Google docs, because I share them with Bri, and Adrianna Blackman and the office. Excel sheets and checked boxes, emails to reiterate what your conversations were today and what marching orders are coming out of those conversations. It’s clear communication.”
I quite honestly don’t know who I am as a head coach because I’ve never done this before. There’s this little experimental phase we're going to go through for a while we’re all going to have to try to figure that out.Emily Kohan
Within the confines of the program, she is not the only list maker. She has kindred spirits on the team in some of the players. Ruby Kayser is a list maker. So is Naeemah Weathers. Kennedy Stanford, not so much.
Kohan had a strong grasp of what she brought to the table in the interview process, and the players – naturally – had a list of what they wanted to see in a new coach. When Kohen burst through the doors of the Bob Davis Hall on Monday morning after Director of Athletics Joe Parker had gathered the team to tell them a decision had been made, she did so to enthusiastic applause.
Kohan asked them directly what it was they really wanted in a coach. The list setter Cierra Pritchard rattled off was a mixture of why they wanted it to be Kohan and what traits the new coach should convey.
“She has lists with our goals. Her lists often have something concreate and attainable and future oriented,” Weathers said. “That’s an Emily list. Whenever we have meetings, she makes me list out my goals, and it reminds me that my goals are attainable, that they’re real and I’m a grounded person.”
Kayser looks forward to those meetings, and she’s had plenty of them over the years with Kohan, who was her position coach. She loves they rarely start with volleyball, but about life. They talk classes, roommates and future plans, then they get to the sport.
Going in, Kayser knows she has to be as prepared as her coach, because the discussions are going to be very detailed. At the end, it’s Kohan asking Kayser what she can do better as a coach to help her reach those goals, be they on or off the court.
For each player, it’s the same.
“She’s the whole package. I think that’s the theme for a lot of us,” Stanford said. “We had a lot of desires for what we want to achieve on the court and off the court, and I think she covers both sides of that wholly.”
Kohan was also honest with them, the byproduct of being honest with herself. She knows who she is as an assistant. As the head coach, it is unchartered territory.
She cannot remain who she has been, the person helping to construct and enhance the company brand. She is no longer following orders; she is giving them.
“There has to be some grace by the team and our staff. As the past 12 years as an assistant, I’ve tried to fill gaps,” Kohan said. “As a good assistant, you don’t always get to be authentic to yourself because you’re trying to fill responsibilities or emotional voids. I quite honestly don’t know who I am as a head coach because I’ve never done this before. There’s this little experimental phase we're going to go through for a while we’re all going to have to try to figure that out. Tom leaving doesn’t just affect me in terms of the dynamic, it affects our whole staff and our whole team. We’re all going to go through a phase of who we are without him and what my authentic coaching style is and what the pillars I really believe in are. The winning expectation doesn’t change. The method we use to get there may be different and a little more personalized to me.”
Hilbert had given her the space to find that person already and they most definitely butted heads on a few items, but he hoped it would be Kohan who took over the respected program he built. She also knows the winningest coach in Colorado State history will still be in town and will still have connections.
She wants to use them, and use him, too. She considers him a dear friend and her hope is he continues to positively impact the program for years to come.
But the decisions will be hers. She doesn’t like to use the word change, favoring evolution. She accepts there will be real repercussions if decisions are wrong. She’s also pretty sure people will comparing her to the man she replaces.
“Tom leaves big shoes to fill,” she said, starting to grin. “Luckily, I have a shoe addiction.”
And her lists. Because when she was given the news, Christmas was just two weeks away. One list went into the trash, no longer needed. The other was put immediately into action.
“We knocked a lot of it out this weekend, I’m not going to lie,” Kohan said.
When she returned to the office Monday, she went back to her familiar space, her order of business in place, meeting with both Blackman and Olmstead with an action plan to deliver. The only difference was it was now her calling it to order.