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OKLAHOMA CITY (KOCO) — An Oklahoma City youth volleyball team celebrated its national championship victory, a triumph that carried profound emotional meaning after a season marked by challenges and loss.
Most championship teams undergo hardships—an injury, a bad loss or even a player leaving.
Peak Volleyball’s 13U team faced those obstacles, but they also endured the devastating loss of one of their biggest fans, Marty Proper.
“He loved this team,” said Lisa Polcovich, the team’s coach.
But what Marty loved more than the team was one of its players—his daughter Tess.
“He loved watching his daughter play, and he was saying to everybody, ‘This is the best day of my life that I got to see this team and these girls, and my daughter win a national qualifier,’” Polcovich said.
But when the team was on their way home, tragedy struck.
“That morning, we all get home. Everybody’s tired, and we get the news. Marty was at work, suffered a heart attack and passed away,” Polcovich said.
Marty’s family said it was unimaginable.
“It was the most difficult time in our lives, and it happened so quickly and abruptly,” said Rachel Proper, Tess’s mother.
While they struggled with the loss, Polcovich knew the team could help.
“There’s actually a little more to the story,” Polcovich said.
She explained that Tess wasn’t alone in her grief.
“We also have another player who lost her dad a couple of years ago,” Polcovich said. “I lost my father when I was 13.”
That shared experience helped Tess feel like she wasn’t alone.
“It felt like I could talk to her about things and that I related to her in other ways,” Tess said.
Polcovich said she feels she was put in the right place at the right time.
“I just felt God has put these young women in my life because I’ve experienced something like this, and they’re going through it,” she said.
While Marty’s family began their next chapter, they wanted to honor him and his love of volleyball. So, they turned to a well-known comment of his for inspiration.
“He used to tease all the time that Peak was going to need a trophy case because our team was going to bring home so much hardware,” Rachel said.
His family donated a trophy case to the team in his honor, giving his daughter and her team a mission.
“I wanted to honor him by playing for and playing for something bigger than myself,” Tess said.
As the team battled through a demanding season, they qualified for the national tournament. Polcovich said when it mattered most, the team’s true colors were revealed.
“They are team players. They want the best for each other, and that was what was the game changer is that they unified just at the right time,” Polcovich said.
That unity led to a national championship victory.
With that, Tess was able to prove her father right, bringing home the hardware that will rest in his trophy case.
“They donated the trophy case, and now we’re able to put that national championship in there in his honor, in his family’s honor and his daughter’s honor,” Polcovich said. “It couldn’t mean more to us.”
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