Ike Everard is a Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover  Chandler by AZPreps365

“If you play softball, you play badminton.”

Those were the words senior Isabel Honzay heard during the Chandler fall athletics meeting her freshman year.

“I was kind of like ok, I’ll do that in the fall,” Honzay said.

The speaker was coach Lois Truman Emshoff. A member of the Arizona Coaches Hall of Fame, Emshoff has been fine-tuning her philosophies for over five decades at Chandler.

Emshoff started the badminton program from scratch in 1972.

“We had to practice at six in the morning,” Emshoff said. “They didn’t have lines on the floor.”

Just five years later, the team completed its first undefeated season. The quick rise of the program put it on the map at Chandler, but over the following years momentum waned and obstacles surfaced.

“There was a slump when the district brought in a superintendent from the elementary school and he decided that ninth graders needed to be in the junior high,” Emshoff said. “When we lost the freshmen class, we lost a year of experience, so my program went downhill.”

Even though ninth graders are once again part of the program, there are new challenges.

Club sports are a big reason Emshoff has struggled to recruit players. The nationwide trend of sports specialization has drained her biggest talent pool: softball players.

“Nowadays most girls want to play softball year-round, and they don’t have time to play any other sports. That was never a problem back in the ‘70s,” Emshoff said.

It’s not just other sports which pose a threat to the program.

Emshoff said the athletic director took away her practice facility.

The badminton team used to alternate with volleyball each week for practice space in the Payne gym, but this season badminton has been relegated to the “old” gym. That gym, built in 1929, features so many obstructions that the team cannot practice properly.

“I fight for fairness. I fight for equality,” Emshoff said. “I butted heads with administration over those two terms. I just feel that my players parents pay taxes just like other parents do and they should have equal facilities.”

Emshoff also taught a badminton class, which was taken away due to budget cuts.

Now, most players come to the sport through untraditional paths. Senior Katherine Chou swam competitively until she discovered an allergy to chlorine.

“Right before high school started, I had a friend who won state doubles in badminton and said I should try so I just went with her,” Chou said.

Players falling into the sport as a backup plan is common. The Chandler team features a contingent of ex-softball players who couldn’t quite cut it at the high school level.

Despite not being a primary sport, the culture fostered by Emshoff within the team is as strong as ever.

“Personally, she’s there for all her players so It’s really nice to have a coach who’s also a friend,” Honzay said.

Just because Emshoff is nurturing off the court doesn’t mean she’s lost the competitive edge she developed playing collegiately at Arizona State University.

“It’s tough love,” Honzay said. “We do a lot of conditioning and running, but also we get down to the basics and she shows us a lot of different techniques.”

Emshoff still displays a youthful exuberance during practice, bouncing from court to court and showing her players techniques through exaggerated hip-thrusts and hand jabs.

The impact Emshoff has on her players is evident in everything she does. One of her former players, a softball player at Arizona State, named Emshoff as the best coach she ever had.

This year’s team is in the midst of a resurgence despite the obstacles they’ve faced. They sit at 5-2 and Emshoff believes they have a realistic shot at making a run in the state tournament.

The biggest lesson Emshoff teaches her players has nothing to do with what happens on the court.

“I learned that everyone’s human,” Honzay said. “Everyone has their own life and their own story that they bring to the table. She’s not just a coach to everyone. She’s a mom, a sister and a daughter too.”