New volleyball coach relying on his experiences

By MAYAN PAZ

Tiger Media Network

The new leader of the Fort Hays State University volleyball program has high hopes for his first season in 2026.

After eight seasons with head coach Jessica Wood-Atkins, FHSU made a change and signed Garcia Ramser as the new leader of the program. 

Ramser, previously the head coach at Adams State University, hopes to lead the Tigers to a season above 0.500 in MIAA play for the first time since 2016. 

The Tigers had an improved overall record last season (16-13), but only accumulated five conference wins (5-11), leading to the change. 

Ramser’s last job at Adams State was his first opportunity as a head coach, and he led the program to immediate improvement in the two years he spent there. From having a 28% winning rate before he joined, Adams State improved to  50% in Ramser’s last season with the Grizzlies. 

Before that, he was an assistant coach at Angelo State, where he helped the team to an AVCA national title during the COVID-19 season and two Lone Star Conference titles.

Ramser said he gained insight about the FHSU program while working in Colorado the past two years. When he heard there was an opening, he decided to try his luck.

“Really, it was kind of just, ‘Hey, it was open,’ and I thought it’d be interesting enough to kind of toss my name in the hat and just see if anything came of it — at least from the get-go,” he said. “And fortunately, it was tossed in the hat, and my name got pulled out of the hat. So just kind of getting to work through that whole process was neat, and getting a chance to kind of meet everyone here and everything was great.”

Having recently transitioned from the position of an assistant coach, Ramser said it is a completely different challenge. Another significant change for him was going from a national title contender to teams with different goals at Adams State, trying mainly to qualify and succeed in their respective conferences. 

He said his previous experience at Angelo State and Adams State can be used for his task at FHSU.

“Every assistant coach in the country thinks that, ‘Hey, they’ll have an ability to do it, and it won’t be the craziest thing.’ But … I learned that it does not matter how prepared you think you are. You are not prepared for it,” he said about transitioning to a head coach position. “There is something about taking the winning culture that I’ve been part of and maximizing the people that you have, and kind of what their skill sets are, knowing that we can’t just magically change everybody to kind of operate the same, so kind of finding that common ground.” 

Ramser was signed by the athletic director at FHSU, Lisa Goddard McGuirk, who told fhsuathletics.com about the decision to bring him into the program. 

“We are excited to welcome Garcia to Tiger Nation,” she said in a press release. “Coach Ramser shares Tiger Athletics’ steadfast commitment to excellence. His wealth of diverse coaching and recruiting experience at the NCAA Division I and II levels, combined with his commitment to the student-athlete experience, stood out throughout our search process.”

It is unclear how the team will look next season, and Ramser said he will need the spring semester to train, get to know the team and play a few scrimmages before making any decisions. 

“I think there’ll be some different things,” he said. “We’re certainly not going to close off and not try to add anything. We’ll probably see what’s going to happen. I know it’s a vague answer for now, but that’s certainly what we’re going to see; what the roster kind of looks like as we keep going.

“In modern college sports, I think if you’re not looking in the transfer portal during every window, you’re screwing up — whether you want to or not. But I think it’s a necessity of how our athletics world works right now to at least look at it and kind of see if there’s anyone that does make sense for it.”