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It's a late Friday afternoon and, instead of getting away for Labor Day weekend activities, members of the West High volleyball team are pulling weeds on the school grounds. Soon they go inside to discuss what they're learning with this and other community-oriented activities.

Then its time for a workout. Through it all, nary a drop of actual volleyball is pursued.

Now if you think that's crazy, consider the source.

Kim Norman has a proven history of taking moribund volleyball programs and eventually turning them into winners — like, in 1992, when she became coach of Highland High team that had won two games the year before.

In 1996, the Rams claimed the Class 5A state championship, and in 1997 the 4A state crown.

The next stop for Norman was Westminster College in 2004. The Griffins had suffered through a 1-20 campaign the year prior to Norman's arrival and then went 14-14 in her first season.

Eventually, Norman led Westminster to Frontier Conference first-place finishes in 2005 and 2006. In '07, the Griffins finished with a 25-12 record.

"For some reason, I've been attracted to the bottom-of-the-barrel programs," Norman joked.

She's now in her first year at West, which won less than a third of its games last season.

The veteran coach has a reflective first step toward building a program.

"I think empowerment of young women and teaching them what that means — using their voice, finding their inside power," Norman said. "Once you find that, then they typically begin to build a culture of excellence."

But there are specific things she does in making that happen. One thing that she's instituted is a minimum grade-point average of 3.5 rather than the 2.0 that used to be accepted.

"We need to do a few things very, very well and the rest takes care of itself," Norman said.

"The expectation around excellence is very clear. We had to let an athlete go last week already because the guidelines are very, very clear," Norman said. "We're not going to make an exception to how they behave in the classroom, in the community or on the volleyball court."

So far, the West players are buying in, although the Panthers have dropped their first three matches of the year.

"I think she pushes us super-hard," said junior Afton Wylie, who also plays for Norman on the High Country club volleyball team. "Last year, if we lost a game, we wouldn't have practice. This year, she pushes us harder in practice."

"She teaches us the real volleyball. It's not like the basic high school way, it's more like college-level," senior Sinai Tupou said.

Norman is also teaching life lessons, enhanced by personal experience.

While Tupou had no prior knowledge of Norman, Wylie was aware that her coach's tenure at Westminster came to an unhappy end in the 2013 season.

"For dumb reasons," is what the junior Panther player understands of the breakup.

But Norman isn't dismissing the value of what she learned from her college experience.

"They let me go. We didn't agree and it was absolutely one of the saddest days in my life," Norman said. "I learned a ton about life from that experience. I loved every kid and everything we did at Westminster College.

"We had a wonderful team culture and wonderful team values, but mistakes were made," she added. "And that's what I teach kids all the time: Mistakes never turn into fatalities. You've got to be willing to play in the arena and be marred, kicked and punched. You've got to get back up."

Much of Friday's team activities for the West Panthers were of the re-do variety. The calisthenics were as a result of what was deemed a lackluster effort the night before in a match against Viewmont.

The weeds? Well, apparently the team members were practicing avoidance when it came to the "sticky" ones between the West gym and the main classroom building on campus.

While Norman noted that other students on campus might have seen the weed-pulling as a punishment, it was a service to the school that wasn't done right the first time — so now it was a lesson in how to accomplish a task to the end.

"It was never a punitive activity, it was a service activity. Those are life skills that others retreat from because we don't like others to judge us," Norman said. "In life, with the sticky weed, you must find a tool to get it out. Maybe you're going to find a spoon or the back end of your boot, but you don't just leave it because it's a sticky weed."

Twitter: @eribUTsports —

About Kim Norman

• Took over a Highland High team in 1992 that won two games the year before, and led the Rams to back-to-back state titles in '96 and '97.

• Took over a Westminster College program that had gone 1-20, led the Griffins to a 14-14 record her first season, and went 25-12 within four years.

• Now at West, which won only a third of its games last year; has instituted a minimum 3.5 GPA for eligibility, rather than the standard 2.0.