DENVER – When Debbie Hendricks became the MSU Denver volleyball coach in 2000, there was no doubt which direction she wanted to take the program.
 
"I'd had the good fortunate of winning a national championship at West Texas A&M, so I didn't set the bar any lower," Hendricks said. "I knew there was work to do, but it was a matter of getting the right athletes and getting back to the right culture. It's not like I invented winning – there was a long tradition of winning already there. It was just a matter of finding the right recruits and getting us back to that place quickly."
 
Hendricks may never have gotten that elusive national championship with the Roadrunners, but she did build upon and enhance the program's reputation as one of the best in Division II while starting the still-ongoing streak of 20 consecutive appearances in the NCAA Division II Tournament by sending all 16 of her teams into the postseason.
 
Second in program history with 353 coaching victories and second with a .704 winning percentage, Hendricks will be recognized and honored on Oct. 2 as part of the latest class of inductees into the MSU Denver Athletics Hall of Fame.
 
The 7 p.m. event at the Auraria Event Center will follow MSU Denver's 3 p.m. home volleyball match against Westminster and is part of Homecoming Weekend. A social hour is scheduled for 6 p.m. followed by the dinner and program. Tickets to the program are $50 for adults and $20 for kids 12 and under.
 
Also being inducted in the star-studded class is former basketball national player of the year Brandon Jefferson, former softball star Christie Robinson and former athletic director and coach Joan McDermott.
 
That Hendricks was available to be hired a little over two years after winning a national championship was a stroke of fortune for MSU Denver. She coached the 1998 season at West Texas A&M, ironically losing what she thought would be her final match as a coach to the McDermott-led MSU Denver team in the NCAA Tournament.
 
She had other plans.
 
"I wanted to go to medical school and I took all the courses I needed right up to taking the MCAT," Hendricks said. "Then I went to the regional tournament at West Texas (in 1999), and Joan was there as the regional representative."
 
The rest is legendary, of course. McDermott was also out of coaching, and was MSU Denver's athletic director.
 
"We were just chatting," Hendricks said. "I told her that I was really missing coaching and that I thought I had made a mistake. She asked me how I felt about Denver. I said, 'I think I would like that.'"
 
They met again to talk about the job at the American Volleyball Coaches' Association convention, and things continued to progress.
 
"I had my heart set on the job," Hendricks said. "I knew I would love to work with Joan, and I knew that the program had already been a top-25 and regional contender. I had a lot of respect for what was going on there, and I knew Joan was going to be a great AD."
 
Hendricks inherited a team that had gone 10-21 in a one-year blip after McDermott moved into administration and before Hendricks took over. She had only four players in the program during the spring, which is often when much off-season progress is made by teams.
 
No matter, she kept recruiting to build around the committed group that became the team's leadership core and fashioned a 21-9 record and NCAA Tournament trip her first season.
 
"Those four were serious about where we wanted to take the program," Hendricks said. "They were the neatest group. It was tough spring, but it was rewarding, and they gave us full buy-in."
 
The rest, as they say, is history.
 
The 2001 through 2003 teams went a combined 82-17, including three straight 18-1 RMAC regular season championships and three straight RMAC Tournament championships. For her career, Hendricks was 240-60 for an .800 winning percentage in RMAC regular-season play.
 
That dominance was in spite of the presence of Nebraska-Kearney, a national power that was part of the RMAC during Hendricks' tenure.
 
"Early on, so much was about our matchups with Kearney," Hendricks said. "Some of our most disappointing losses and some of our most enjoyable wins were against them. We beat them at Kearney in front of more than 3,000 people, one of the largest crowds in Division II. When Kearney hosted the RMAC Tournament in 2009, we were down two (sets) and came back and won in five for the championship.
 
"Kearney was always the measuring stick. Rick Squiers (then and now Nebraska-Kearney's coach) would be the first to tell you we had some wars."
 
Through it all, the NCAA Tournament streak was the quiet bass line beating below the surface. It wasn't a focus, it was just there.
 
"Once you have a streak, you don't focus on it or you end up putting pressure on yourself," Hendricks said. "In the early going, we believed we could build a program that should be making the NCAA Tournament every year, and that was a goal we set at the beginning of every year. The program had been consistent at getting there prior to that, and we just wanted to make that the standard."
 
Of all the great teams and great runs, perhaps it was the 2003 team where destiny was denied. Ranked as high as No. 2 nationally during the season, the Roadrunners played host to the regional tournament, but were upset in five by No. 25 Rockhurst (Mo.).
 
But all of Hendricks' teams set a foundation that it still being built upon today. Current MSU Denver coach Jenny Glenn led the Roadrunners to a 18-0 RMAC season in her first year in 2016, and her current team is ranked No. 3 nationally, the program's highest since 2003. The Roadrunners also won the Colorado Premier Challenge, Division II's best in-season tournament, for the first time since 2003.
 
"I love that we had the 16 years of success that we did, and I can't say enough about the coaches before me and clearly Jenny has been very successful after me," Hendricks said. "I'm just a piece in the puzzle, part of the tradition of the program. I'm proud to be part of it. Over 16 years I was able be in the right fit and have the right experience. I enjoyed who I worked with and who I was surrounded by, and I wouldn't ask for anything different."
 
Eventually, Hendricks was ready for a change after the 2015 season.
 
"It was my 25^th year as a coach and my 24^th as a head coach," she said. "And the things I used to find exciting – traveling, and recruiting to try to find that next great member of the program – was becoming a grind. It used to be that a five-set match was thrilling, but the last two or three years they became incredibly stressful and didn't feel healthy.
 
"I said, 'it may just be that that's enough.' I had a great run, and I knew they would find a great replacement. I wanted to leave the sport when I felt like I was still doing the right thing for the athletes and wasn't losing steam. You see coaches that stay beyond the point they should, and I didn't want to do that."
 
Hendricks is still around the program, and frequently provides analysis on the streaming broadcasts of MSU Denver home matches.
 
Good timing, good fortune, and a change of heart set her on this path.
 
"I appreciate (former MSU Denver vice president for administration) Joe Arcese and Joan McDermott for giving me the opportunity," Hendricks said. "I was still a relatively young coach who had stepped away once already – they could've been concerned that I would feel that way again in two or three years, but they believed in me and supported me, and I can't say enough about what they were doing in the early 2000s to elevate the program and give it a chance to be successful. That's the main thing that coaches are looking for from administration."
 
It set up what is now, officially, a Hall of Fame career.
 
"I'm honored and humbled," Hendricks said. "I always feel like it's just one person representing many other individuals. I had so many wonderful players and assistant coaches that I worked with and learned from, and then we had great administration. It might be an individual honor, but it certainly wouldn't have happened without all the others who made us go and helped us have the success we did. I think it's appropriate to say that I feel like they are all going in with me, because they are all part of it in their own way."