Very few people have successfully built a program from a struggling team scrapping for every win to a successful powerhouse that is a contender for the Big 12 Conference title every year.

Christy Johnson-Lynch has shown her ability to do just that as she powers forward in her seventh season coaching the volleyball team at Iowa State.

Johnson-Lynch notched win number 136 against Texas Tech on Saturday. She has now won more games than any other ISU volleyball coach.

Before getting into coaching collegiately full time, Johnson-Lynch was a high school teacher trying to get kids to do their homework. This became a more grievous process than it sounds while balancing trying to win a state volleyball title as a high school coach.

Johnson-Lynch showed she could be successful in the volleyball arena when she played at Nebraska under then-coach Terry Pettit.

Johnson-Lynch played for the Cornhuskers from 1991-95, earning All-America honors in 1994 and 1995. Johnson-Lynch also started as setter for Nebraska in 1995 as she helped them win its first national title.

“She is very passionate about all aspects of the game,” Pettit said. “One of the great things about her was how [many] extra reps she would put in during training. She did all the things she needed to do to become a great player.”

Johnson-Lynch acknowledges that her success has come from some very good teachers. Pettit coached the Cornhuskers for 22 years, amassing 694 victories. The Huskers were Big Eight and Big 12 champions for all but one of those seasons. This included a stretch of 17 in a row from 1977-1992.

She and her former coach still talk on the phone a couple times a week.

“He’s really helped me make some important decisions and he’s great to bounce ideas off of,” Johnson-Lynch said. “He watches our team play on TV and asks me, ‘What are you doing here? You need to make this adjustment.’ He’s a tremendous coach, and he’s been a great mentor.”

During her playing career at Nebraska, the team reached the NCAA tournament all four years and won three Big Eight titles. In her final two seasons, the Huskers went 63-2, including a 24-0 record in conference play during that time. 

Johnson-Lynch’s playing career didn’t stop there, as she went on to play on the 1989 U.S. National “B” team.

After her playing career at Nebraska, she used her degree in education to take a teaching and coaching job at Millard North High School in Omaha, Neb. She received a phone call during the middle of the school year about a setter coach opening at Wisconsin. That is when she made the decision to focus on coaching full time. 

She joined coach Pete Waite’s staff in 1996, which included current Nebraska coach John Cook.

“I worked with John Cook, who is as passionate and as competitive as anyone I’ve ever met,” Johnson-Lynch said. “I learned a lot about just being passionate about something every single day, even when you’re tired or frustrated or disappointed.”

Johnson-Lynch also worked with fellow assistant coach Chris Bigelow, who later went on to be an assistant at California. Johnson-Lynch considers Bigelow to be one of the top recruiters in the country.

“She’s a great mentor to me,” Johnson-Lynch said. “I learned about relentless recruiting from her and how much passion, time and energy you have to put into recruiting in order to be good at it.”

While Johnson-Lynch learned a lot in her time at Wisconsin, it was the traits that she already had that made Waite want her on his staff. Waite was impressed with Johnson-Lynch’s accolades at Nebraska, and her teaching background was even a key factor in her getting hired.

“She used to be a math teacher, so she had a good mind for figures and which rotations to use on the court at which times,” Waite said. “She also had experience as a player, so she had been through the mental and emotional toughness that goes with that.”

After eight solid seasons as an assistant, six of them with Waite, Pettit told her about the opening at Iowa State. A short while later, Johnson-Lynch got a call from ISU Senior Athletic Director Calli Sanders.

Johnson-Lynch accepted the head coaching job at Iowa State on Dec. 14, 2004. The quality of volleyball at Iowa State would only go up from there.

“I ended up interviewing and I absolutely loved it,” Johnson-Lynch said. “I loved the campus and the staff. I thought it was a great opportunity.”