SLIPPERY ROCK — Danielle (Hogue) Busi got the feeling the administration was serious about bringing her aboard as the varsity volleyball coach when she found something unusual in her school mailbox.

“There was a volleyball in it one day,” Busi said, laughing. “It was from the superintendent. It’s good to be wanted. They’re stuck with me, I guess.”

Busi, a 2004 Slippery Rock High graduate, excelled as a volleyball player at the school after a slow start in the program.

During her freshman season, she didn’t see any varsity time as the Rockets struggled to just one win.

By the time she finished her senior season, she had the school record in kills and helped the Rockets to an 18-0 record in the regular season.

That team reached the District 10 semifinals.

She parlayed that into a successful four-year volleyball career at Westminster College.

Busi was inducted into the Slippery Rock Athletic Hall of Fame in 2015.

Now, 12 years later, she is the volleyball coach for a Slippery Rock program that has seen a few lean years recently.

“It’s very exciting,” Busi said. “And sometimes I think the players don’t get why I’m so intense about it. I want to take it back to the teams that we had in the past. I want to make it that when teams play Slippery Rock they know they are in for a battle.”

Busi coached junior varsity volleyball at Butler and joined the Slippery Rock High School district last year as a special education teacher. She coached the eighth-grade volleyball team in 2015.

“I thought if this is the future of the program, I’d like to be involved,” Busi said.

Senior Lexi Romeo is hoping Busi can turn things around to send her and the other seniors out on a positive note.

“She definitely does a lot of teamwork and team-building activities,” Romeo said. “She does a lot more conditioning. When we mess up, we know what we have to do to fix it so it won’t happen again and we won’t have to keep running.”

Busi played for Greg Dugan, who lifted the program to another level before he left. He is now the varsity volleyball coach at Shenango.

Busi said she has drawn a lot from her days playing for Dugan.

“Just the way he interacted with the girls and cared about them,” Busi said. “He got to know the families and got the girls out in the community. He started (the yearly Slippery Rock) tournament. I just want to keep those things alive the best that I can.”

Busi said she realizes bringing the Rockets back to prominence won’t be easy or happen overnight.

“I told them, ‘I’ve been in your shoes.’ When I was a freshman, I wasn’t even on the varsity team,” Busi said. “But we progressively got better. I told them, ‘Listen, I understand. It’s going to take work and I may not have all the answers.’”

The ninth-grade group is talented, and while the team is not physically imposing — “We’re not going to scare anyone on paper,” Busi said — they are gritty.

But grittiness can only get a team so far.

“I just want to see the girls who want to put the time in,” Busi said. “My big thing and what I think worked so well with Dugan was we were in the gym two nights a week all through the summer. Even in the spring, we were playing (Junior Olympic volleyball).”

Busi said she is already seeing that.

“We have two seniors who played J.O. and they really improved,” Busi said. “I’ve been pleased with the scrimmages we’ve had so far.”