Most high school athletes recruited to play in college select their future school for a similar reason — “It just feels right.”

They sift through the offers and settle on a school where they connect with the coaches, players and campus.

For Oak Harbor High School senior volleyball setter Hailey Beecher, picking George Fox University in Newburg, Ore., followed this well-worn path.

“When I walked onto the GFU campus, I instantly felt at home,” Beecher said. “Everything about the campus felt perfect; the staff and the students were outstanding. The whole feeling and atmosphere of the campus felt like a completely different world, a world I wanted to be a part of.”

Other colleges, Beecher said, didn’t have “the true fit.”

But for Beecher, the draw to George Fox was much more than a personal connection. A pull from the past — Kim Meche — tugged at Beecher to initially check out the school.

Meche played volleyball at George Fox, but she didn’t recruit Beecher to attend GFU. In fact, Beecher and Meche never met.

Meche, an Oak Harbor High School graduate, was a four-year starter at George Fox from 1985-88 and helped lead the Bruins to the national title in 1986. She still holds the school record for aces in a career (219), season (87) and game (seven) and owned the aces-per-set mark (.68) until 1995. She ranks fourth all-time in assists (2,868). Meche was the team’s co-MVP in 1986 and 1988.

Meche earned her teaching degree and eventually coached high school volleyball (including in Oak Harbor and Coupeville). She later became a respected administrator in the Stevenson-Carson District in Southwest Washington.

George Fox coach Steve Grant said Meche stepped into the challenge of being the team’s setter as an untested freshman, displaying “courage and enthusiasm that made those around her better competitors and people.”

That courage and enthusiasm served Meche well, Grant said, when she faced her biggest challenge, cancer. Meche died two years ago this month.

“My inspiration to play for George Fox came from an article about Kim Meche,” Beecher said. She noted that Meche also attended Oak Harbor High School, also played setter and also grew up in a Navy family. In fact, the two were born in the same town, Lemoore, Calif.

“I never received the opportunity to meet Kim, but my inspiration came from her accomplishments, her battle against cancer and her perseverance to succeed in any challenge that she was given.”

Beecher decided to pursue a college volleyball career her freshman year of high school, then, she said, “I truly began to believe that I could achieve this goal around the beginning of my junior year.”

With the help of her high school coaches (Kerri Molitor, Amanda Reed and Rick Swankie), Skagit-Island Volleyball Academy Director Zach Calles and her parents (Bryan and Holly Beecher), her dream has been realized, she said.

At George Fox, her goals are for the team to win a divisional championship, to earn a starting position and to become “the best player I can, one that helps encourage and challenge my teammates.”

“To play for a 600-win coach, coach Grant, will be an honor,” she added.

Thirty years ago, Grant, in one of his first recruiting efforts, selected a setter from Whidbey Island to lead his team. Now, as his career is winding down, he chose another.

Some would say the Oak Harbor-George Fox connection has come full circle. Others would say it is just a coincidence and that lines will finally connect if one waits long enough.

Beecher sees it as more than luck or fate.

“My inspiration to follow in her footsteps has led me to seek out George Fox University and be persistent in my faith that I will study and play where God intends for me,” Beecher said.

(In addition to playing volleyball for Oak Harbor High School and George Fox University, Meche played for the Northwest Volleyball Camp tour team that competed in Europe in 1986. Photo by John Brasch.)