All in the family: Volleyball coaches, refs share court on Thursday night
Expect some good-natured trash talk at the volleyball game between Federal Way and Puyallup high schools on Thursday night in Puyallup. The officials will be in on it, too.
It’ll be a family affair. Both head coaches and all four of the game’s officials are part of the same family. The head referee is Nadia Tialavea, who has been officiating volleyball for 13 years. Opposite her will be her daughter, Harmony. The two line judges are Nadia Tialavea’s twin daughters, Jeanieva and Lesandra. Her oldest daughter, Alexandria Tuilaepa, is in her first year as the head coach at Puyallup High School and Nadia’s brother, Brooks, is the head coach at Federal Way.
Got all that?
“It’s a pretty fun and happy moment,” Nadia Tialavea said. “Proud mom, proud sister. Proud volleyball person, just seeing my daughter being able to coach at this level and have her own team.”
Nadia, 48, grew up in Oahu, Hawaii and moved to Washington in 2002, when Alexandria was around four years old. She was always that parent, she joked. She didn’t play volleyball growing up but became enamored with the sport when Alexandria started playing as a kid.
When she was approached by a club volleyball director about becoming a referee, she was on board. She has now been refereeing high school volleyball for 13 years, and college volleyball for eight years. At first, it was an adjustment from the parent side to the official side.
“You can’t be as friendly with everybody,” she said.
Alexandria Tuilaepa, the Puyallup coach, has also done some officiating. She was an assistant for Graham-Kapowsin coach Loni Parks before landing the Puyallup job. Before that, she played for her uncle, Brooks, and helped coach for him on the club side. She coached her younger sisters, too.
“It’s just nice to be able to have support all around,” she said. “Our family, we’re so heavily into the sport of volleyball, we could just bounce ideas off of each together.”
Sometimes her grandparents have had enough.
“Too much volleyball, no more volleyball talk!” they tell the family.
During large family get-togethers at the park or the lake during the summer, there’s always a volleyball net involved.
“We’re super big into sports,” Alexandria Tuilaepa said. “It’s always family, friends. All our friends are considered family. Everybody plays volleyball.”
Brooks joked with his sister Nadia that Thursday’s match is a conflict of interest since Alexandria is her daughter. All jokes aside, Nadia expects a routine game, from an officiating standpoint.
“I’m just gonna call the match as it is,” she said. “I just go up there and do my job, call the match as I see it, whether it’s family or not.”
Alexandria expects a big, happy crowd on Thursday at Puyallup High School.
“It’s gonna be really fun,” she said. “I feel like we have a lot of fans coming to support both sides, for both of our teams. They just come for the connection they have with us coaches. They see how much we love the sport and so it’s gotten them to be interested in it.
“They’re coming to support and watch a good game. It’s really just going to come down to hard work and who’s ready to get after it.”
The game between the Eagles and Vikings is set for 7:15 p.m.
