May 21, 2020

UPDATE: Hays High announces Funk as volleyball coach

Posted May 21, 2020 4:40 PM

A day after announcing a new head girls' basketball coach, Hays High has announced the hiring of Shannon Funk as its new volleyball coach. She is a longtime staple in the western Kansas volleyball community. As an employee of Hays Recreation Commission, she revitalized the volleyball summer league for middle and high school teams. The league played in Hays saw more than 50 teams playing at its peak. 

In 2007 Funk established Western Kansas Elite. She ran the club volleyball team through 2017 increasing the teams from one her first year to thirteen her final season at the helm. Those thirteen squads totaled more than 100 girls. 

Funk has also coached in the schools of Hays. Following graduation in 1999 she became the girls "B" team basketball coach at Felten Middle School from 1999 through 2004 and was the assistant volleyball coach from 2000 through 2005. In her first return to Hays High she was an assistant on the volleyball team for 2006 and 2007 and an assistant on the girls basketball team from 2005 through 2007. 

Funk also spent one season at Fort Hays State University as a volunteer assistant coach in 2008. 

Funk was the first volleyball coach at TMP-Marian Middle School and held the position for two years before joining her sister on the TMP-Marian High School staff. She assisted Natasha Dreher from 2014 through 2017. Her final season as an assistant was the same year that TMP won the 3A state title. 

Funk will also teach Social Studies and Physical Education at Hays High School. She was approved as the head volleyball coach in January and as a result has had the opportunity to meet with her team on a few occasions before the COVID-19 pandemic halted on-campus classes. 

She replaces Christin Nunnery who stepped down at the end of the 2019 season.