Coaching Tree

MOSES LAKE — Like most parents at Moses Lake High School volleyball matches, Krystal Trammell cheers her children on from the side each night as they compete. Trammell cheers and supports her daughters Serina and Ashlyn Haneberg from a little closer than most, the bench.

Trammell has been a varsity assistant coach at Moses Lake for the past three years, helping coach her twin daughters. Trammell knows too well what it’s like having a parent on the sideline, as her father, Bob, coached her and her sister, Heidi, at Warden High School. In the Trammell tree, coaching and family don’t fall far apart.

Bob Trammell came from a large family, with seven children, and said finances were too tight for them to participate in sports growing up.

“My father didn’t see the value in sports,” Bob Trammell said. “I loved sports, but I wasn’t able to play, so I wanted to find some other way.”

Bob Trammell finally found his venue for participating at the YMCA, playing basketball after school. The person who encouraged him to play and participate, his fifth-grade teacher, became someone who shaped his life and coaching career.

“I wanted to be like him, he helped kids,” Bob Trammell said. “He gave me the chance to play.”

Bob Trammell carried the life lessons he learned from his teacher into his own teaching and coaching career. The same techniques he used in the classroom, he used for his teams.

“Outside of games, the type of person you are or become is how you handle difficulties, as well as successful moments,” Bob Trammell said. “Same is true in life, how you handle the good and bad. You win with class and you lose with class.”

Off the field, Bob said his wife, Kathy always reminded him to have patience.

“Most coaches want results quickly and Kathy reminded me to give it time,” he said.

Kathy Trammell said there was always something new every day, and that it was wonderful watching the family grow.

“It’s also very rewarding getting to know all the team members on, and off the field,” Kathy Trammell said. “The kids are the main reason.”

At Warden High School, Bob had the opportunity to coach his own daughters in their high school careers. Trammell coached Heidi and Krystal in softball and basketball.

“Being able to coach my daughters gave back to me,” Bob Trammell said. “I didn’t feel i missed out on playing when I was young with the opportunity to coach them.”

Coaching his daughters, Bob Trammell said he worried about favoritism. He said he’d try and distance himself, often being harder on them and expecting more.

When she was growing up in Warden, both of Krystal Trammell’s parents were teachers. As a coach for 40 years, she said her father always emphasized competing, but also what you could learn.

“He competed with you off the court in life, a life lesson,” Krystal Trammel said. “If you were able to touch a student or an athlete’s life in a positive way and they were able to carry that lesson, or be a better person themselves, than we did our job.”

Working as a counselor now at Chief Moses Middle School, Krystal Trammell said the impact her father had on her has shaped the way she works with kids, and helping to develop the person that they become.

At Warden High School, Krystal Trammell played volleyball under Dennis Treat, before going on to play at Big Bend Community College from 1991 to 1993. She then moved on to Eastern Oregon University from 93-95, where she begin her own coaching career as a student assistant the following year.

Moving back from college, Krystal Trammell came to Soap Lake, where she was the head coach for a year. The following year, without enough players for a team, her former coach, Treat, called and asked if she’d like to join him at Moses Lake Christian Academy (then Moses Lake Christian School) in 1998.

It was during that season, on a trip to the state tournament, that Krystal Trammell found out she was pregnant with her son Kyler.

Kyler Haneberg had a successful career as an athlete himself at Moses Lake High School from 2014-2017. Having coaches in his grandparents, his father, and his mother around him growing up helped shape him on and off the field.

“It makes it a lot easier because they’re in my ear telling me exactly what to do, how to please everybody,” Haneberg said. “It helped me because, not only did I have coaching advice, but great advice at home.”

The coaching gene first struck Haneberg in his sophomore year, when an injury sidelined him for a game against Richland. Seeing the opportunity to help players off the field, Haneberg said he knew then that this is what he really wanted to do.

“This is what’s gonna make me happy after all this is said and done,” Haneberg said.

Krystal Trammell said with her children growing up, on the sidelines at practices and around the players as she coached, it had an impact on them. As a former volleyball player and coach, this impact directly hit her twin daughters, Ashlyn and Serina, who have played at Moses Lake the last four years.

Three years ago, an opportunity came for Krystal to follow in her father’s footsteps, as she became the varsity assistant at Moses Lake High School under Jennifer Gering.

As a single mom, Krystal Trammell said she’s been grateful for the opportunity and chance to have this extra time with her daughters in high school.

“I’ve always coached, so having the opportunity to get back into it when my girls are in high school, knowing I loved having that opportunity with my dad, was the perfect time for me to say, hey, I can do this with my own girls,” she said.

Krystal Trammell said she works to separate herself as coach and mom between time spent at practices and games and at home. She said there’s a fine line when they get home about how much they’ll discuss volleyball and situations. Having the chance to see her daughters’ successes and failures and help improve on them, Krystal Trammell said she’s thankful for that and the opportunity to be part of her daughters’ athletic careers these past three years.

Serina Haneberg said that ever since she started playing volleyball with her sister, she’s wanted to be like her mother, and play in college. Serina Haneberg said she puts a pressure on herself to reach the level that her mother had.

“She’s always helping me on and off the court, with what I can do better and how I can better myself for the team,” Serina Haneberg said.

Ashlyn Haneberg said going to practices and games as her mom coached in Warden had a large impact on her own volleyball career.

“I think it’s cool just having a mom who’s very supportive and knows so much about the game and pushes me to be the best,” Ashlyn Haneberg said.

Playing with their mother on the sideline, Serina said she finds herself pushing harder to defeat the notion of being a “coach’s kid.” Ashlyn said the past three seasons have helped to build the bond between herself, her mom and her sister, on and off the court.

Both sisters agreed they’d love to get into coaching in the future, doing the same thing their whole family has.

The oldest sibling, Kyler, has started his own branch of the family coaching tree this season, working with the freshman football team at Moses Lake High School. He said when he got the call, he felt like he couldn’t say no.

Kyler Haneberg said he was nervous when he first started, but said the nerves turned back into fun and joy after a few practices. “It means a lot to me to give back to the community that helped me and shaped me into who I was,” he said. “Moses Lake is a very loving community.”

As his daughter coaches his granddaughters now, and his grandson begins his own coaching career, Bob Trammell said he never thought the coaching lineage would trickle down the way that it has.

“When you see your kids, grandkids teach what they’ve been taught and have the opportunity to see lives touched, it makes me smile,” Krystal Trammell said. “They put themselves in that spot on their own merit.”