Incoming call: Coach Keeney.

She steps out of the basketball game she’s watching. She picks up the call like she has hundreds of times before, but there’s no greeting — just one phrase.

“It’s time to come home.”

That’s all former head volleyball coach Karin Keeney said to her — and that was all she needed to hear. She knew what she had to do, even if it meant leaving a head coaching job to be an assistant, she wanted to come back to where it all began — she wanted to come home.

Head volleyball coach Rachel Buckley worked for four years to get the head coaching job at The Colony High School. But after getting the call from her former head coach in 2023, she knew returning to her alma mater was her dream come true.

“There’s something different about Hebron,” Buckley said. “The energy [and] aura of Hebron is different. The legacy and the level of play, volleyball wise, is high. There’s something [special] about Hebron.”  

The 2010-11 Lady Hawks celebrate after winning the state championship on Nov. 20 against The Woodlands High School. The team won the game 3-0, ending the season with an undefeated playoffs run — both in sets and games. (Photo via Rachel Buckley)

One more set. 

The 2010 Lady Hawks are down 24-17, one set away from becoming state champions — points away from doing it without dropping a set in the playoffs. She has one thing on her mind, it’s what she felt the whole year, and it was what she was trying to get her teammates to do — believe.

Buckley started playing volleyball in fourth grade after watching her eldest sister, Jennifer, play at Hebron. She went on to play at Arbor Creek Middle School before coming to Hebron and playing throughout high school. 

“[Buckley] was just little bitty [when Jennifer was at Hebron,]” Keeney said. “She was running around, stealing volleyballs, going out in the hallway and playing. She was a presence when she walked into a room.” 

During her sophomore year, Buckley suffered an ankle injury during volleyball offseason that caused her to miss five months. The next season, she was injured again at a Coppell game — one where recruiters from colleges, as well as club coaches, were present. 

“I went up to hit on the outside,” Buckley said. “I came down, [and] I thought I had just rolled [my ankle,] but I had broken it. I remember the University of Oklahoma scouts walking out, and they never contacted me again. It took me [to a] low [point,] because I thought I wasn’t going to get a scholarship. I thought that was it for me.”  

Despite seeing the injury, Buckley’s club coach still wanted her to play for him. She went on to play for Dallas Premier during her junior and senior years while also playing on varsity for Hebron and captaining the team both years.

“She just loves the game,” Keeney said. “She was such a strong leader because she didn’t demand anything of someone else that she didn’t do herself. She knows the game and has the passion for [it].”

In Buckley’s senior year of high school, the Lady Hawks made it to the state championship. It was her third year on varsity and second year as captain. The team won the first two sets of the game and came back to win 27-25. They became state champions — Buckley got what she believed in.  

“I looked at [my teammates,] and was like, ‘We can do this. We’ve done this before in the district championship in middle school,’” Buckley said. “They were like, ‘Shut up. That was middle school.’ When [Keeney] called that time out in our third set, I was the one who talked to the team. I [always thought] if we believe we can do it, [then] it can happen. They bought into everything I said in that moment. We started our run back and we did it.”

Buckley convinced her mom, Deborah Buckley (Debbie) to buy the state championship ring even before the team made it to the tournament. Debbie made sure to go to Buckley’s high school games with the rest of their family; they all drove out to watch every game of the playoffs run as well. 

“Volleyball has always been a part of Rachel,” Buckley’s older sister, Katharine Farish, said.  “She’s always been very passionate. After they won state, we were waiting to see her and we had to wait behind two police officers who were getting her autograph. It was weird, but that was the force that was Rachel, and she still is.” 

Though she had offers from multiple programs, Buckley was only interested in two: North Carolina State or Texas A&M. She decided on NC State, committing in May of her junior year for a full-ride scholarship. 

“[NC State was] going to make their whole program around me, which as a freshman, [was] rare,” Buckley said. “I went out there, and I fell in love with it. I had never seen grass that was so soft.”  

Debbie and Buckley pose for a photo at Buckley’s high school parent night game. “My dad was stuck in traffic, so it was just my mom and I,” Buckley said about the game. “She always said it was one of her favorite memories because it was just us.” (Photo via Rachel Buckley)

Let go, let God.

It’s what she told herself throughout college — to let go, to get out of her own way and just play the game. There were times where it got hard and she wanted to quit, but she kept going.  

“I said [to Rachel,] ‘When you get to college, it’s a whole different ball game,’ and she didn’t care,” Buckley’s dad, Scott Buckley, said. “She just wanted to do it. That first year was probably the hardest thing she’s ever done. She called and said, ‘Dad, I can’t take it.’ [But] she got through that year, and started to realize that she had the ability to unite and convince her teammates of [her] goals [and] how realistic they can be.” 

When Buckley came home for Thanksgiving during her freshman year, her parents told her that her mom was diagnosed with cancer. The rest of her family found out about the diagnosis in August but told her in November. Debbie underwent chemotherapy for stage three breast cancer and was in remission. 

“I wasn’t sure what to expect because that was my first experience with cancer,” Buckley said. “There was a fear around it, but at the same time I was naive because I didn’t know what to expect. It was more the scariness of having your mom sick than anything [and] not being close in proximity.” 

The summer before Buckley’s junior year, Debbie came to NC to help Buckley move into a new apartment when she noticed something was off. When Debbie came back home, she was hospitalized due to breathing issues; what was originally diagnosed as walking bronchitis and pneumonia was the cancer coming back as stage four. By that point, it had metastasized and spread to her lungs and brain. 

“[We had to] pull over in the car because I [was] crying so bad [when I found out],” Buckley said. “I remember coming back from Mexico [after spring break.] I called her, and I couldn’t understand a word she was saying.”

Debbie worked as a youth director at their church throughout Buckley’s life. She said that her mom’s goal was to always spread love, even if it meant offering random students rides home — she lived a life full of inspiring young children and loving everyone. 

“Her biggest thing was that love is a verb,” Buckley said. “It’s not this puppy feeling that we get or attraction — that’s lust. It’s how you show love towards others, and that we should be that. That I should be a channel and spread that love — [to] be love.”

April 22, 2014. North Carolina time: 7:30 a.m. — Dallas time: 6:30 a.m. 

Incoming call: Dad.

She knew. 

She knew the second the phone started to ring. She knew what he’d say when she picked up the call. She knew that was the moment her world came crashing down. She knew that her mom had passed away. 

“It [didn’t] hit me at that moment what was going on,” Buckley said. “It was a final end to something that we knew was coming. I was just numb.”

She channeled all the numbness into feeling something on the court. Buckley continued to play volleyball all four years at NC State and was captain her junior and senior year. In her senior season, she was awarded MVP for all four of their preseason tournaments. 

“She’s constantly [been] competing, [even when she was] a toddler,” Buckley’s older brother, Nick Buckley, said. “Maybe it’s from being the youngest of four, where she’s always wanting to get up [there] with the rest of us. She’s [found] a way to harness that [and it] helped her continue to grow. 

“[Our mom passing] threw her into it even more, because when you lose that family piece of your life, and you have that mom hole in your life, you try to fill it any way you can. Volleyball was what she loved and so she dove into it even harder.”

Buckley has two tattoos in honor of her mom: one saying “Be love” and the other is a line in her mom’s handwriting saying “I am always here.” Buckley said she looks for her mom in different ways, and that ever since there was a rainbow at Debbie’s burial, every time she sees a rainbow, there’s one thing on her mind: “Hi Mom, you’re here.”  

“Every year, there’s a different moment where it hits,” Buckley said. “There’s songs that are her song, [like] ‘The Day the Music Died.’ She would always sing that song, [and] on the way to her burial, all five of us were in the car, and it came on the radio, and I was like, ‘It’s mom.’ Still to this day, during the national anthem [at games,] I always picture her in a seat near the flag — wherever that is. There [are] moments where I need to tell her [something] and then it’s like, ‘Oh, [I] can’t do that anymore.’”

Vary hugs Buckley at the senior night game on Oct. 18. Vary has known Buckley for two years after meeting her at the volleyball summer camps her junior year of high school. “After our first district game, my mom [had to] take my dad to the hospital,” Vary said. “Right in my mind, I knew there’s only one person to call. I had to call [Buckley]. She calmed me down [because] she’s so good about reminding me that [I] can’t control the uncontrollable. She’s always one call away.” (Shiren Noorani)

As she stands in the same gym she did 14 years ago, there’s one thought on her mind: she’s home.

Buckley worked a sales job after college for a year before coming to the Hebron 9 campus in 2016 as a teacher, where she worked for four years. She volunteered for the volleyball team her first year before officially becoming an assistant coach the following year. After assisting for three years, she was hired by The Colony High School to be the team’s head coach. 

“I could have gone the sales route and made a lot more money than I do now,” Buckley said. “But [I] chose something that was morally more in my wheelhouse, rather than just doing something for money.”

Buckley was at The Colony for three years before she came back to Hebron to assist Keeney in 2023. Keeney spent 24 years building the volleyball program from the ground up. The program won five state titles in Keeney’s tenure, in which Buckley was a part of three — winning one as a student and assisting Keeney in two. When Keeney announced her retirement in February of 2024, Buckley — along with the other assistant coach at the time — took over the team during the off season. 

“She lived it, she was a part of it, not only as an athlete in a state title, but also as an assistant coach in state titles,” Keeney said. “I knew she was ready. She’s a Hawk, she comes from Hebron. This is her home. This is her love. She wants to be here. Even when she was at The Colony, she still had her Hebron sticker. She wanted to come back and take over the program that she was once a part of.” 

Buckley uses examples from her experiences of playing volleyball in high school and college to help the team through their season. Farish said because everything Buckley does is with love, it’s genuine. 

“Nothing that is involved in volleyball is fake,” Farish said. “She loves to act as that mentor figure for people. She’s seen and experienced a lot of different things, and so [being] able to learn from her experiences and give genuine advice back to other people [has] shaped her. She loves it to her core — what you see and what you get with Rachel, it’s all real.”

Farish said watching Buckley coach is just like being back to the days she was on the court playing. Though Buckley’s family still comes to games to watch and support her, the person that Buckley said was her biggest cheerleader, Debbie, never got the chance to see her coach. 

“Debbie is [still] at every game,” Buckley’s best friend Hayley Miller said. “Her presence is felt all around Rachel, she is in every game.”  

In her first season as head coach, Buckley led the Lady Hawks to an undefeated district season, winning the district title, and three rounds into the playoffs. 

“It’s easy to get caught up in the titles, the accolades, the awards and the medals,” Buckley said. “Obviously, we’re competitors, and we want to win, — but [I’m] here to help these kids through life and [in becoming] adults. That’s what it’s all about; that’s why [I] do this job. I want to be a source for them in their life going forward. To have the opportunity to be there, help counsel them through things: it’s a confirmation as to why I do what I do.”

Other than routine volleyball practices and drills, outside hitter Addison Vary said Buckley has taught the team anything from breathing exercises to more about their body and how it works. Buckley had the team take personality tests at the beginning of the year so the team could understand what one another needs. 

“She knows what our bodies need, she’s there for her kids [and] she treats us like her daughters,” Vary said. “She’s not going anywhere anytime soon: she was born to be a coach. Even though she’s not on the court with me, it feels like [she is.] She went through Hebron volleyball. She went to play beyond. She’s good about reading us and she looks more into players than just volleyball.”

Buckley said she plans to coach at Hebron for as long as she can. After seven years of working toward it, she’s finally got the job she had been dreaming of. 

“It feels like I’m in the right spot; it feels comfortable, peaceful and just right,” Buckley said. “[The decision] was a no-brainer, because the goal was always to get back home.”