Witt volleyball assistant trades coaching for love

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By By Kermit Rowe 10:26 PM Saturday, May 2, 2009

Brittany Baume loves her alma maters, Wittenberg University and Southeastern High School.

She loves her hometown of Springfield, and she especially loves volleyball.

But Witt’s fourth-year assistant volleyball coach and former standout athlete has found the love of her life, forcing a decision to leave all of her above-mentioned passions.

True love does that, you know. It makes you re-examine your priorities, and pushes its way to the top of that list.

On May 24, Baume will marry Matt Schmidt, the first-year head women’s basketball coach at Armstrong Atlantic State University, located in Savannah, Ga. Then she’s moving to The Peach State to start her new life as a wife, leaving all she’s known behind.

“We talk on the phone a lot, but that’s getting kind of old,” she said. “He’s my best friend. It was worth the sacrifice of not being together this year, because we’ll be together the rest of our lives.”

Schmidt proposed to her April 9, 2008. At that point, her heart still was with the Tigers.

“I felt a loyalty to Wittenberg not to leave the team,” she said. “Besides, he’s so busy in his first year as a head coach, I was better off being up here.”

Fittingly, a Trojans teammate, Tiffany (Stewart) Hiser, got the two together.

“She had played for Matt at Findlay (University), then she became a graduate assistant and got to know him pretty well,” she said. “She just always thought that we’d really hit it off.”

But love was the furthest thing from her mind her first year as a coach.

“I basically committed myself to be a sponge and soak up all I can and not worry about my love life,” she said. “You don’t have a lot of time for that.”

After Baume’s first season coaching at Witt, Schmidt called. Three years later, everything has changed.

“I’ve put my time in at Witt,” she said. “I can’t be an assistant coach at Witt forever. I am sad, or scared, to take a break from coaching. Serving on a search committee, I know it is hard to get back in once you get out.”

She’ll be leaving at the top of her game. This past week, she received a Thirty Under 30 Award from the American Volleyball Coaches Association. The 2002 Witt graduate is one of 15 assistants and one of four Division III coaches on a list of the top 30 coaches in the nation under the age of 30.

So she’s giving up a lot.

“He (Schmidt) knows that. I know that,” she said. “I do think in some shape or form I’ll be involved (in coaching). But my passion is the collegiate level. You get to know your players at a more intimate level. They look to you for guidance, and a mentor. The relationship is what I value.”

That is obvious.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0364

or krowe@coxohio.com.

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