Terri Blosser Feature

Blosser sees coaching as more than wins and losses

By Ben Risinger, Sports Information Director
Special to the Bluffton Magazine

Sometimes athletes leave Bluffton College and possess a knowledge and love of the game that they feel they have to give back in some way. Former volleyball and basketball player, Terri Blosser, wanted to coach after her playing career was cut short. She wanted to make a difference in someone’s life because her coaches had made a difference in hers.

 Alumni Terri Blosser

Blosser, who graduated in 1987, was the recipient of the Kathryn E. Little Award that is given each year to a senior female athlete. She had been a mainstay in both the volleyball and basketball programs but was forced to sit out her senior year due to a knee injury. Even though she couldn’t play, she stayed active as a junior varsity coach on the volleyball team and volunteered at Pandora-Gilboa High School to help coach the girl’s junior varsity basketball team. While at Pandora she coached and learned under Cheryl Althaus (83), a member of Bluffton’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

 

“It was very difficult year because my athletic career was pretty much done at that point in terms of playing,” Blosser said. “But being recognized by the college for accomplishing the things I had done was very uplifting and rewarding.”

 

One person who influenced Blosser and helped her stay in teaching and coaching was former Bluffton coach Kim Fischer. Blosser explained that Fischer would go above and beyond the call of duty for any of her players.

 

“I’ll never forget the day that she loaded me into the back of her car when my leg was in a cast (after surgery) and hauled me off to the fitness center uptown to do my weight lifting workout,” she said. “Coach Fischer was a great person and someone that will always hold a very special place in my heart.”

 

After graduation Blosser moved to Goshen, Ind., to teach and coach at Goshen High School. She coached several sports including volleyball and softball. Blosser then took the 1992-93 school year off to finish her master’s degree. While completing her degree she came back to Bluffton to serve as a graduate assistant coach in women’s basketball under former Bluffton coach Michele Durand (88).

 

She returned to Goshen to coach at the high school and junior high levels before retiring from the coaching realms in 1999. But, Blosser couldn’t stay away too long. She continued to volunteer for the volleyball programs at the Boy’s and Girl’s Club and is now the coach of the seventh and eighth grade boy’s track team at Goshen Middle School.

 

Blosser finds the greatest fulfillment in helping students not just in the classroom and on the court, but in life as well. “The score and records, those things are not important over time. It’s what you do with what you have that matters the most and I try to get that across to my kids on the court and in the classroom,” she said. “You only have this moment, the precious moment of time, what you do with it…that’s what is most important and what really matters the most.”
 

She continues to love her alma mater and says she is a true Beaver at heart and always will be. “I really enjoyed my years at Bluffton. The friendships I made and the people I got to meet were awesome experience. The professors were always there to help and it’s just a great place to get an education,” Blosser said. “I knew the first day I cam to visit the campus that Bluffton College was the place for me. Those years of my life will always be very special.”