By John Raffel
Correspondent
SOUTH HAVEN — Mony Amar-Newton has special memories of the South Haven volleyball program which celebrated its 50th anniversary this fall.
Amar-Newton started with the high school program in 1978 as a player. She graduated in 1981 and played three years on the varsity. Her team lost in the state semifinals in 1980.
She was a right side hitter for South Haven every year.
“I give credit to Dene Hadden,” Amar Newton said. “He was a great coach. He had a really good program. He made us what we were. It was just fun. We had a great team.”
The team was almost always competitive.
Amar-Newton won’t soon forget 1980.
“It’s just the whole season was fun and remarkable,” he said. “We went to that last game which was a highlight, but we lost. It was a real close game. It went to overtime, 16-14. SO it was kind of a hard loss.”
At that time, the season was in the winter and matches were best of 3 rather than best of five as they are today. Games were played to 15 rather 25 and teams only scored when they were serving.
“Dene Hayden, he’s the one who made the program so incredible,” Amar-Newton said. “When Dene left, the program did change.”
Amar-Newton also play basketball at South Haven.
“I was better at volleyball,” she said. “Basketball was fun but it didn’t mean as much to me as the volleyball program.”
Amar-Newton was all-conference three years volleyball and also earned all-state honors.
She played college volleyball at Kalamazoo College for two more years. She coached 12 years total, mostly with the junior high program at South Haven.
Amar-Newton lives in Kalamazoo during the summer and in Florida during the winter. She is retired.
