Starting off with 40 donated volleyballs and four teams, executive club director JoEllen Saulsberry founded Texas Tornados Volleyball to train aspiring volleyball players and help students secure college scholarships in 1994.
“I had a high school basketball coach that was very influential in my life as a youth athlete, and so I knew pretty early on that I wanted to pay that gift forward,” Saulsberry said.
How it started
Growing up in California, Saulsberry said volleyball was huge. She started playing volleyball and basketball as a hobby with her best friend. After transferring to the University of Houston during her senior year, she met Bill Walton, a coach that would end up being a mentor and father figure in her life.
Paying forward the techniques instilled in her, Saulsberry decided to open her own volleyball training facility in Cypress.
Originally operated from her own home and different spaces she leased, after 10 years Saulsberry said she purchased the 56,000-square-foot land where Texas Tornados Volleyball resides today from Fred Caldwell, developer of Towne Lake, in 2004. Today, Walton is a coach at Texas Tornados Volleyball where he continues to support and influence Saulsberry’s passion.
“It's always been extremely important to me, to be family oriented, and although we're competitive and we want to win, at the end of the day, I want to put good humans back in the community,” Saulsberry said.
Furthering her legacy, Saulsberry said she was pregnant with her daughter Kirby Kliafas when she first built Texas Tornados Volleyball, and now her daughter coaches at the training facility.
Texas Tornados is located in a 56,000-square-foot building. (Courtesy Texas Tornados)
What they offer
Serving students from kindergarten through 18 years of age, Texas Tornados Volleyball offers several programs, including:
Twister Tots: an entry level experience for children ages 5-18
Tumbleweeds: designed for boys and girls in grades 3-8 who want to build strong volleyball fundamentals
Spring Valley Tots: entry-level volleyball experience for boys and girls in kindergarten-third grade
Hoops Jr. Basketball: designed for boys and girls in pre-K through sixth grade who want to build strong basketball fundamentals
With over 7,750 students that have transferred to universities with a volleyball scholarship after being trained at Texas Tornados Volleyball, Saulsberry said students have earned scholarships to over 400 different schools, including Harvard, Sam Houston State University and the University of Houston.
More than volleyball skills, Saulsberry said her goal is to teach students discipline and life skills they can take on to their future jobs and other opportunities.
“I feel like sports are so important because it teaches a lot of really valuable life lessons. So that's what I try to instill in the players,” Saulsberry said. “Like how to work with other people. You know how to work through failure, and it builds character at the end of the day. ... Also they'll meet some of their lifelong friends they'll have forever through doing this, and the memories are awesome too.”
