Heidi Otto stepped away for a year as a head high school volleyball coach. During that time, she saw personal growth as an assistant on the bench during a remarkable season of volleyball at Conroe High School in 2022.
While helping with the Tigers, the team set the school record for wins, returned to the playoffs for the first time in five years and won their first playoff game in 26 years.
With new experiences and knowledge added, Otto, who was the head coach at Caney Creek from 2019-2021, returns to head up the program at Splendora.
“I think it’s just the kids and the culture,” Otto said of what enticed her about applying at Splendora. “I think they have a really good winning culture here already, which is really nice to step into as a coach. It’s also something we can build on a lot in the future. That was really promising to me.”
After departing Caney Creek, Otto went on a heckuva ride with Conroe coach Charvette Brown’s team last fall. The Tigers won all three of their regular season tournaments, were nationally-ranked early in the season and ended up going 44-5.
After such a memorable season, Brown stepped down from coaching at Conroe back in January to spend more time with her family. She was recently hired as school counselor at Krimmel Intermediate in Klein ISD.
“Working for Coach Brown was one the best experiences I think I’ve had as a coach,” Otto said. “I’ve known her for a while – not super personally – but she was coaching when I was playing back when I was 10. Just knowing that she had been around the game for that long was really awesome to see her perspective on everything.”
Brown coached five years at Westfield before getting hired at Conroe in 2013. Otto knew she could learn a lot from Brown and her experiences as a head coach.
“That was a really big factor in me going there,” Otto said. “I just figured with her having coached for that long, there’s got to be so much stuff that she could teach me. It was just the perfect spot.
“I can’t even list the amount of things I learned from her. Which was awesome before taking another head (coaching) job.”
Having success on the staff was beneficial too, as well as working with an elite talent in Ariana Brown, who spent her senior year playing for her mother’s team and making history. Ariana Brown will play at Louisiana-Monroe this fall.
“To have some success over there with her was really great,” Otto said. “Especially getting to work with Ari was a big plus for me too.”
Otto takes over a Splendora program that has sustained a good amount of success, but has had a bit of a coaching carousel. The Wildcats made the playoffs every season since 2019 in Class 4A. The 2021 team moved all the way to the regional semifinals.
Last year’s team went 23-20, fell in five hard-fought sets in the regional quarterfinals to Spring Hill and lost three key seniors.
Now working alongside last year’s interim coach Ashley Brockner, Otto is now the fourth leader of the Wildcats since 2018.
“I can tell when I met them, that they have had several good coaches,” Otto said. “But it’s also been ‘several’. I kind of was like, this is going to be my place. I want to be that next consistent one for them. It’s kind of my goal.”
Much like a lot of different areas of Greater Houston, the Splendora area is growing in population. The athletic program briefly made the leap to Class 5A back in 2016, and it looks like they are trending that way for the upcoming February 2024 realignment.
“That’s kind of what we are going with and we’ve accepted it already,” Otto said. “It was an enticing factor. Coming from Caney Creek, growth and development was huge there as well right around the time I left. That’s always been a part of my coaching (career). It’s what I’m used to. It feels right.”
The community was a big factor for Otto going after the job.
“The kids are great, the parents are great,” Otto said. “We just have a really great support system out here. It’s really awesome to be a part of that.”
Otto played volleyball at Klein Collins, where she graduated in 2012. She went on to play a season at Southern Miss before transferring her sophomore year to St. Edward’s University in Austin. After an injury, Otto finished off her college studies at Texas A&M.
Otto’s brother Glenn is a pitcher for the Texas Rangers.
“I’m just really excited,” Otto said of the upcoming Wildcats volleyball season. “We have a really good work ethic already. I can’t wait to build on that, add in some more volleyball knowledge and just get rolling.”
