New ASU volleyball coach makes emotional return

Brian Gerwig was always adamant with his wife, Molly: He was never moving back to Arkansas.

It wasn't a slight directed at her home state. Molly was born and raised in Marianna before playing and coaching volleyball at Harding University in Searcy.

But they'd moved on in their respective coaching careers. Brian, who'd worked on Coach David Rehr's staff at Arkansas State from 2017-18, had followed his boss to the University of Houston. Molly, after being an assistant at Tarleton State for a season, had landed a job 20 minutes across town as an assistant at Houston Baptist.

The life Brian and Molly imagined together, be it in Houston or wherever the sport that first connected the Gerwigs took…