Torbett Thomas was a middle back and defensive specialist, something Rose made a staple of NCAA volleyball. Learning from the best, starting with her own father — Tom Firth — at Eisenhower, Torbett Thomas has been coaching in the college ranks for over 30 years — 28 at the NCAA Division 1 level.

On Oct. 6, Torbett Thomas earned her 500th career head coaching victory in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s 3-0 sweep of visiting Furman at Maclellan Gymnasium, 760 miles from state Route 957.

“Achieving the 500 milestone was a great feeling and a time for me to reflect on all the great teams and players I have had the privilege to coach over the years,” said Torbett Thomas. “I am at a new program, so I think the players at Chattanooga can trust that I know how to win and I am committed to helping them achieve success on the court and in life.”

In Torbett Thomas’ 30 seasons, she spent 17 at UNC Asheville from 1994-2010. At the helm of the Bulldogs program, she garnered 304 victories and two Big South regular season titles. Her two titles came in 2002 and ’09 with 26-8 and 25-10 records, respectively. The Bulldogs also had a 25-win season in 2005 and back-to-back 20-win seasons in 1995 and 1996.

Photos courtesy of gomocs.com and gomocsvolleyball Instagram Eisenhower High School graduate and NCAA Division 1 University of Tennessee at Chattanooga head volleyball coach Julie (Firth) Torbett Thomas recently earned her 500th head coaching win over 30 seasons. She is a 2003 Warren County Sports Hall of Fame inductee, who played at Penn State University under the legendary Russ Rose and at Eisenhower for her father, Tom Firth, a 2010 WCSHOF inductee.

Torbett Thomas was a two-time Big South Conference Coach of the Year. Under her leadership, UNC Asheville reached a No. 10 ranking in the South Region and won 20-plus matches five times.

After UNC Asheville, she spent two years at Winthrop, where she led the Eagles to 34 victories and a 20-8 mark in Big South Conference action. In her first season, Winthrop won a share of the Big South regular season championship, the first for the program since 2007.

Beginning in 2013, Torbett Thomas spent seven years at East Carolina, where she won 109 games, the most in program history.

ECU had 10 or more wins in all seven of Torbett Thomas’ seasons at the helm of the Pirates. It marked the first time the program had seven-straight 10-win seasons since 1989-95. Her 69 wins throughout the last four years were the best four-year stretch for the program since winning the same number from 1979-82.

In 2017, the Pirates went 22-11 — the most wins for the team since 1982, and the team clinched its first 20-win season since 2005.

Torbett Thomas was hired at Chattanooga after two seasons as head coach of Division 2 Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where she only coached one of those seasons due to the COVID pandemic canceling 2020.

At Chattanooga in her first season as head coach, Torbett Thomas helped turn around a program that won seven games in 2019 and 11 in 2021 to a 17-16 record in 2022, or Chattanooga’s first winning season since 2016; 17 wins were also the most for any first-year head coach at Chattanooga.

Prior to Sunday’s match at Mercer (Macon, Ga.), Chattanooga was 15-7 this year.

It’s been a challenging season personally for Torbett Thomas; her youngest son, Tristan Torbett, who is a member of the U.S. Deaf Men’s National Soccer Team, suffered a stroke in Taiwan while en route to Malysia for an international tournament. Torbett Thomas immediately flew to be with him and he is home recovering after emergency brain surgery.

“Life doesn’t stop for volleyball, so having a personal crisis during my season put a lot of things into perspective for me,” said Torbett Thomas. “My sons have only known ‘mom’ as a ‘coach.’ My teams have always been their extended family. They have seen me drop everything for a player that needed me, so I think it was just known I would drop everything and be by my son’s side even all the way across the world.

“I hate that I am so far away from home,” she said. “I had a great time coaching up at IUP (Indiana, Pa.) for a season and a COVID year. It was nice to see family at my games and go back to Penn State before my coach retired. I am extremely grateful for how I was raised and where I come from. It was a simple life back then, and sports and school was all I did. My teammates were my friends. We didn’t have all the distractions and negativity. There were no influencers or even cell phones at all, so we talked to each other and worked things out face-to-face. Only winners got trophies; only the best played. It’s much different now and I have had to evolve, but my small-town values have never changed, and what I put in on the front end at Eisenhower and Penn State is what prepared me for a career in sports and some great moments along the way.”

While Torbett Thomas played for the legendary Rose, who retired after 42 seasons as head coach at Penn State University as Division 1’s all-time winningest head coaches with 1,309 wins, her first coach is also “Dad.”

“I plan to come home for my Dad’s 85th birthday sometime after my season in November or December,” said Torbett Thomas.

Julie (Firth) Torbett Thomas was elected to the Warren County Sports Hall of Fame in 2003, and her father, Tom Firth, was elected as part of the class of 2010.