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Former star player, assistant coach at St. Olaf to lead women's volleyball team

By Amy Gage
January 14, 2002

Former college volleyball standout Traci Rasmussen-Cook has been named head coach of women?s volleyball at St. Olaf College. Cook served as assistant coach in 2001 under head coach Cindy Book, who remains at St. Olaf as athletic director and chair of the physical education department, a position she has held since 1998.

Cook was a four-year starter for the Ole volleyball team. She graduated from St. Olaf in 1998 with a bachelor?s degree in mathematics. She served as middle hitter on the 1996 team that finished third in the nation. In 1997, Cook was named both Player of the Year in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) and a NCAA All-American. Until 2001, Cook held several individual and career volleyball records at St. Olaf. She still holds the school record for the most number of service aces in a single season (79, in 1996) and is second in most career kills (1,462 from 1994 to 1997).

Book stepped down from her coaching duties to focus on her other responsibilities and the Tostrud Center, a new athletics and recreation facility slated to open at St. Olaf in September 2002.

She expresses full confidence in Cook as head coach. ?The athletes know she has played at the very top of Division III. They believe in her because she?s been there,? Book says. ?Traci is very energetic and very knowledgeable of the game. Her enthusiasm is just infectious.?

Cook played volleyball and basketball for four years at Triton High School in Dodge Center, Minn., where she graduated from Triton in 1994. In the spring of her senior year, Cook played on a Junior Olympics volleyball team and was named a AAA award winner in Minnesota for arts, academics and athletics. She also competed in track for three years.

Cook earned her master?s degree in physical therapy from the Mayo School of Health-Related Sciences in 2000 and works as a physical therapist at Back in Action in Faribault, Minn. She and her husband, Kevin Cook, a 1996 St. Olaf graduate, live in Burnsville.

A 22-year coaching veteran, Book took the St. Olaf volleyball team to the NCAA tournament seven times during her 11 years as head coach. She passed the 500-career victory mark early in the 2000 season and after the 2001 season holds a 549?235 record for a .700 career-winning percentage. During her St. Olaf coaching career, Book was named NCAA Division III Region Coach of the Year and MIAC Coach of the Year. She is featured in the new book 6 Psychological Factors for Success: America?s Most Successful Athletic Coaches Reveal the Path to Competitive Excellence, by Steve Brennan, Ph.D.

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.