Nicole Coates did not like to be carried around when she was an infant. But she did like to jump. Bea and Gary Coates would set their baby girl in a device called “Johnny Jump Ups,” and let her jump to her little heart’s content.
“She didn’t mind you sitting and rock her, but she didn’t like to be carried,” Bea Coates said. “I had things to do, so I would put her in those jump-ups and she’d just sit there and jump and she liked doing it. So we just let her go ahead and do it.
“I think she would have been a jumper anyway, but that just trained her. She loved doing it.” The Coates also got their daughter introduced to the start of spiking volleyballs with balloons.
“She picked it up and started batting balloons. And she just keep on batting and we’d see how long she could keep it up,” Bea Coates said with a laugh. Bea Coates said her daughter started walking by five months and her late husband, Gary, the PHS cross country and track coach, had the idea of her getting into the Guinness World Records for being the youngest to complete a 50-yard dash.
“I don’t know if he sent it in or not, but he said he was going to,” she said. That early training led to one of the most elite athletic careers in Bureau County by either a female or male. She would go on to be a state qualifier in four sports at Princeton High School, leading the Tigresses’ volleyball team to the 1990 Class A State championship.
She took her game to the next level to compete for t.