{"id":8764,"date":"2026-08-28T07:19:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T07:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=8764"},"modified":"2026-08-28T07:19:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T07:19:19","slug":"andy-puck-calls-it-a-career-at-princeton-shaw-local","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=8764","title":{"rendered":"Andy Puck calls it a career at Princeton – Shaw Local"},"content":{"rendered":"


Princeton coach Andy Puck works the huddle in Tuesday’s sectional semifinal match against Peoria Notre Dame at Riverdale High School. It would be his final game as head coach at Princeton, stepping down after 24 years as the program’s winningest coach with 516 wins. <\/span>(Mike Vaughn)
Andy Puck\u2019s career as the head volleyball coach at Princeton High School was a good read from cover to cover.
He won a regional championship in his very first season in 2002 and he won another one this season, which proved to be his last.
In between, Puck became the winningest coach in not only program history with 516 wins, second all-time only to longtime boys-girls cross country coach Pat Hodge (533). His Tigresses won nine regionals and two sectionals, capped by a state tournament berth in 2008, \u201cState in 08,\u201d as the Tigresses called it.
Puck decided before the 2025 season that this would be his last year, a decision he kept to a close circle of friends and staff. On Wednesday afternoon, one day after the season ended in the sectional semifinals, he informed his team that he was retiring.
\u201cI wanted to go out on top as far as winning a regional here at home. It\u2019s kind of bookends because my first year here we hosted a regional and won that regional. And my last year we host a regional and win it,\u201d he said.
\u201cI always wanted to go out on my terms. The administration has always been great. They let me be me. They trust my decisions and give me the opportunity to do what I feel is best for the team and more importantly for the program.\u201d
Puck chose not to let his team know his intentions to retire because he wanted the focus to be on them and didn\u2019t want to be a distraction.
\u201cI did not want this to be about me. It\u2019s always been about them,\u201d he said. \u201cI did not want to go to gyms or tournaments and have people talking to me about the good old days. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I love those talks, But that\u2019s taking away from my job and my focus, which is on the girls and getting them ready to play.\u201d
Puck said he would have not have been able to get through his meeting with his team Wednesday had he not prepared a written statement.
\u201cThere were some tears, mostly from me,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m an emotional person. Super hard core. Really old school. Really tough. But if you peel away the onion, I\u2019m definitely soft and they understand that.\u201d
Junior Ava Kyle, who has played varsity for Puck since her sophomore year, said she is sad he isn\u2019t going to be there for her senior year.
\u201cI\u2019m happy that we got to give Coach Puck a regional title for his last year as a coach. That was pretty special, even though at the time we didn\u2019t know it was going to be his last year,\u201d she said. \u201cAlthough he\u2019s retiring, I\u2019m happy for him and I\u2019m glad he gets to move on to the next chapter of his life.\u201d
Puck said the first regional championship in 2002 feels like yesterday. He had come after coaching just one year at rival Hall, where he had been riffed.
\u201cThey threw water over me and I remember they wanted me to do a Pete Rose dive. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d be able to do that now,\u201d he said.
Puck, who will coach the eighth grade team at Logan one last season this year, admits his coaching style has changed from his first year at PHS.
\u201cI was a lot more of a yeller back then. I thought being loud was more powerful,\u201d he said. \u201cThe older I\u2019ve gotten, (I\u2019ve learned) quiet is knowledge. More sit back, take a breath, let\u2019s focus a little more. More positives than negatives. Part of me wishes I was that person back then. But I also feel that it worked for me back then.\u201d
When the COVID shutdown hit in 2020, Puck found he could enjoy life without volleyball and got him thinking then about life after it.
\u201cI did miss it, but I didn\u2019t miss it as much as I thought as I would. Kind of opened my eyes that there\u2019s other parts of life I want to enjoy. That I want to pursue,\u201d he said. \u201cI stayed in because I didn\u2019t want to be that person that regretted it. I still had passion. It\u2019s been harder for me to get to practice, but once I\u2019m in the gym I feel like a kid again. I\u2019m young.
\u201cSaturday tournaments have become, what else could I be doing today? All that set in in during COVID. Gina and I talked and said let\u2019s give this a go and make sure that I\u2019m not regretting the decision and I was glad I stayed in and the senior class was the reason why. Three of them had started since their sophomore year. We definitely took some lumps and knew better days were ahead. I knew this was going to be a special group.\u201d
The family atmosphere of his program over the years has always been important to Puck. This year\u2019s staff includes four alumni, freshmen coach Julie Mussleman, who was on Puck\u2019s first team, and assistants Anna Murray, Libby Boyles and Emma Wittig. Another former Tigress, Emily (Ellberg) Cook keeps the varsity scorebook.
There\u2019s been other alums help in previous years.
\u201cI try to take up as much help as I can possibly get, especially as reliable and knowledgable young ladies. You\u2019re only as strong as the people around you,\u201d he said.
When asked about support of his wife, Gina, who\u2019s become his partner on the job, he became emotional.
\u201cGina said she\u2019d be in for it as long as I wanted to. I did this over half my career without her and the second half has been so much more enjoyable and easier with her,\u201d he said. \u201cShe does all the little things that I\u2019m not good at. She takes care of our social media, all of our stats and all of our stats for conference.\u201d
Puck leaves the program in good shape with both the freshman and sophomore squads winning conference titles with more than 20 wins. Puck said no one on his staff has expressed an interest in taking over the program, so the new head coach will come from the outside.
Kyle said she hopes that assistants Murray and Boyles decide to keep coaching because \u201cthey are such good coaches and I look up to them both.\u201d
Kevin has provided award-winning coverage for the BCR since 1986, covering Bureau County\/IL Valley Sports. Was previously sports editor of the St. Louis Daily News and a regular contributor for the St. Louis Cardinals Magazine. He is a member of the IBCA and Illinois Valley Hall of Fames. <\/p>\n

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Princeton coach Andy Puck works the huddle in Tuesday’s sectional semifinal match against Peoria Notre Dame at Riverdale High School. It would be his final game as head coach at Princeton, stepping down after 24 years as the program’s winningest coach with 516 wins. (Mike Vaughn)Andy Puck\u2019s career as the head volleyball coach at Princeton High School was a good<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t