‘A full circle moment’
The Seaside girls volleyball team has a new head coach. Nicole Aydt described her return to Cowapa league volleyball as a full circle moment. Aydt grew up in Astoria and played volleyball for current Fishermen head coach Eric Gohr from 2010-13.
Aydt was a part of the 2010 team that finished fourth in state. After taking her senior year off to chase her passion of riding horses, Aydt went on to attend Seattle University and Oregon State. She lived in Beaverton and worked in North Plains before returning home to the Oregon Coast during 2020, the year of the pandemic. And now, she is seizing the moment.
“When a job opened up here it was really a no brainer,” Aydt said. “I was excited to take the opportunity and though it was stepping over to (what was) my rival school in high school, it gave me a great opportunity to step into the role as a teacher at Seaside. The staff and community are great — so I’m now a part of the community.”
Aydt says becoming the Seaside girls varsity volleyball coach wasn’t something that was initially on her mind. The job became available last December and since the position wasn’t filled during winter and spring, Aydt was approached by Seaside assistant principal Jason Boyd.
“Around June I was approached by our assistant principal who had mentioned my experience coaching middle school … and said, ‘the school would love for you to take over the high school program,’” Aydt said. “Initially, I was a little unsure about taking that next step up.”
Aydt had coached the middle school team at Catlin Gabel for two seasons before then coaching Seaside middle school from 2021-2025.
Ultimately, Aydt determined that her seven years of middle school experience was enough to give the varsity job a shot. “The school offered me the job in June and I accepted.”
And, due to coaching many of the girls before, Aydt said the transition hasn’t been as tough as she initially thought.
“I’ve coached about 90% of the girls either in class as a PE teacher or on the volleyball court,” Aydt said. “A lot of it is just maintaining those relationships, teaching skills,” Aydt said.
According to Aydt, the difference between middle school volleyball and high school volleyball is skill based. In middle school, the big emphasis is on learning skills such as hitting, passing and serving. In high school, it’s about developing those already-learned skills and putting them into game situations.
Creating memories
Aydt now gets to put her stamp on an improving Seagulls program. Though Seaside has only won one volleyball game over the last two seasons, the roster was filled with mostly freshmen and sophomores. Aydt said the girls have developed a lot of talent and are showing improvement during team practices. So far, the Seagulls are off to a 4-2 start and have shown flashes of even greater potential during game play.
“The girls put a lot of work in the gym this offseason and as they’ve improved on the basic skills, they’re starting to become more confident in what they can do on the court.”
With 4A volleyball in Oregon being a very tough classification — and the Cowapa League being loaded with talented teams — Aydt is being cautious with her expectations for Seaside this year. After struggling to find their footing in league over the last couple seasons Aydt is hopeful the Seagulls strong junior class can prove a worthy opponent for teams like Valley Catholic and Astoria. She wants her girls to be competitive — and prove they belong.
“We know there’s talented teams in the league this year, ” Aydt said. “After watching Valley Catholic and Astoria at the recent scrimmages, they have really good players. My goal is to put us in position to play with those teams … but also create memories that make the girls feel like this program was part of their journey and they gained a lot out of it.”
The long-term goal for Aydt is to create a program that makes girls want to play — and also one that has close ties with both the community and middle school kids. Though winning is always the end goal, Aydt has bought in the philosophy of building camaraderie and making it all a worthwhile experience for the girls.
“I believe that relationships are the most important thing,” Aydt said. “We obviously would like to win league titles and compete for state, but creating a program that’s fun for the girls will always be my top priority.”
