Editor’s note: The following is a partial transcript from an Illini Drive interview with Illinois volleyball head coach Kevin Hambly and his wife, former volleyball player Mary Coleman Hambly.

Illini Drive: Can you tell us what happened coming back from Columbus, (Ohio) on Saturday, technically Sunday morning:

Kevin Hambly: We were on a plane, we were all loaded up, bags were on there. We were headed down the runway, coming up on full speed and all of the sudden, the pilot shuts it down. There was no sound, there was no boom or anything like that. But the pilot shuts it down, does a U-turn and comes back. We’re on this tiny little plane, a charter plane, like 29 seats, so we get to know the flight attendant pretty well. And (he says) we’re done. … He goes outside, and there’s oil pouring out the engine into the ground. So we blew an engine just before takeoff. So thank goodness he shut it down. Otherwise, we’d be in the air flying with one engine.

ID: Were you up late waiting for him?

Mary Hambly: No. If he really came home from the plane at 4:30 in the morning, that’s all I know. He could have gone someplace else. I was asleep.

ID: That was a tough loss in five sets (against Ohio State on Saturday). It seems that’s been happening a lot this year. What has kept this team from closing out these matches?

KH: It was a tight set, the whole match was. We outscored them, out set them, out dug them, we outplayed them in a lot of ways. It came down to the fifth set, and their senior, Mari Hole, made some plays. She made three big swings at the end. … That’s the hardest thing. I thought the team played as well as they have in a long time, and it’s tough to lose that way.

ID: Mary is a former player. What loss is harder to swallow, a five-set long one or just getting run off the court in three?

MH:I think a five-set long one for sure, especially the Ohio State one because there’s a lot on the line. When they lost to Penn State, that (loss) wasn’t a given, but it was a little bit more expected. I think they knew they had a better shot with Ohio State and with what’s at stake with NCAA tournament. I think that Ohio State five-setter (was tough). That crushed me at home. I can’t imagine how (the players) were feeling.

ID: What is an off-day like when the Hambly family is all together?

MH: Sundays for us are chocolate chip pancakes in the morning. We tell the kids to go down and turn on the TV so Kevin and I can sleep in. And then I make the girls breakfast, and Kevin makes me breakfast. Sometimes we don’t get out of our pajamas until we have to and take a walk downtown. We try to be together, and it’s kind of sacred. We play Uno. That’s Quinn’s favorite game. And a lot of board games. Just, you know, hang out. 

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