Jadine Ferri, who graduated in 2003, came back to La Salle this year and coached the girls volleyball team to a state championship.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

As a senior at La Salle Academy in 2002-03, she was a member of state championship soccer, cheerleading and volleyball teams. As a senior at Newbury College in Brookline, Mass., in 2006-07, she played on the volleyball team that set the school record of 23 victories in a season.

As a college graduate armed with a degree in criminal justice, she applied for one job and got it, starting as a patrolwoman with the Coventry Police Department last March.

And as a rookie high school volleyball coach this fall, she won a state championship.

It’s a wonderful life for 23-year-old Jadine Ferri.

“I never really thought about it,” she said last week, and then she did.

“I don’t think many people get the opportunities I did,” she said. “I take it for granted sometimes. I look back on it, and it’s kind of amazing. I’m kind of blessed.”

While working the midnight-to-8 a.m. shift for the Coventry police, Ferri coached the La Salle girls to the Division I state volleyball championship. She had only two starters from coach Jaime Terenzi’s 2007 state championship team, but blended the talents of two experienced players with the skills of newcomers to produce an undefeated repeat champion.

“I didn’t realize what was going on and how lucky I was,” she said. “Not many people get the opportunity to coach a defending state champion team as good as they were.”

Ferri, whose only coaching experience was at summer camps, got the La Salle job because she was in the right place at the right time. She was visiting La Salle last August when Ted Quigley, director of athletics, spotted her. He explained that he needed a volleyball coach because Terenzi was leaving to become assistant athletics director and men’s and women’s volleyball coach at Newbury.

“Jadine was always positive, always well liked by her teammates and classmates and everybody on the staff from the principal on down,” Quigley said. “Jadine was always one of the hardest workers. Her friends would say she was a great teammate and a great friend. She always had a great attitude and always came back to visit.”

After checking with her police department superiors, Ferri accepted Quigley’s offer.

“My sister [Jenelle, a soccer goalie at La Salle and Syracuse University] and I always talked about going back to La Salle to coach,” she said.

Terenzi worked with Ferri during preseason double sessions and then went to Newbury, leaving Ferri on her own.

“I think Jadine was a little nervous when I asked her,” Quigley said, “but from that first day when she was on her own, you never would have known it. She was the boss. She was only five years older than some of the seniors, but she wasn’t their buddy any more. She was in charge. She took right over.”

Her Rams dominated Division I-North, finishing the regular season with an 18-0 record and winning 54 of 56 games. They defeated Chariho, 3-1, in the Division I state quarterfinals and swept East Providence in the semifinals and Classical in the final at the University of Rhode Island.

The experience surpassed Ferri’s expectations.

“I’m more than happy that I accepted. I never expected to have so much fun,” she said.

There were days, however, when the fun was difficult to find. When she benched players for missing practice, she had to deal with parents, and she wasn’t at her best when she was tired.

“Sometimes when I didn’t get much sleep, the girls would say, ‘You’re cranky today,’ ” she said with a laugh. “I’d work the midnight and then sleep until practice. I was late for practice only once or twice. I slept through my [cell phone] alarm once, and at the end of the season the girls got me an alarm clock as a joke.”

Ferri is a competitor. She played softball at Newbury and even ran a cross-country meet “in the absolute worst weather in Vermont” so Newbury would have enough scorers. Her nickname at La Salle was Bam Bam because, as Quigley put it, “she was tough as nails.” A goalkeeper, she would dive for balls in a soccer game and then put on her makeup and cheerleading uniform for a Friday night football game and perform dazzling acrobatic maneuvers. She won soccer, cheerleading and volleyball championships as a sophomore as well as a senior.

“She had more championship rings than anybody who came here,” Quigley said.

As an athlete, she was a bundle of energy. As a coach, she was focused.

“You had to see her on the bench. She just sat there and never moved. Every once in a while she’d get up and whisper something or change a play,” Quigley said.

Her colleagues on the 63-member police force got behind her and asked about practices and matches. Quigley said three of her superiors attended the championship match.

“They thought it was great and were very supportive,” Ferri said. “To this day, I still have people congratulating me and saying they’re excited for me.”

There is a bittersweet element to Ferri’s story, and it involves David Hildebrandt, her junior varsity coach for two years at La Salle when he was still a student at Johnson & Wales, and her varsity coach at Newbury.

“We were like brother and sister, kind of,” she said. “He came to me when we had to talk about something with the team. We fought a lot and yelled at each other, ‘You should listen to me!’ ”

Hildebrandt left Newbury last May after seven years to take the volleyball job at Elms College in Chicopee, Mass. His departure created the opportunity at Newbury for Terenzi, which opened the door at La Salle for Ferri. But in a tragic footnote, Hildebrandt never coached at Elms. He drowned on Aug. 3 when he slipped and fell into the rain-swollen Swift River in Albany, N.H., while on a camping trip with several softball buddies. His body was found downstream two days later.

“I was kind of shocked,” Ferri said. “They had a memorial service at Newbury and asked me to speak. I got up and said a few words. He gave me a lot of opportunities.”

The volleyball season over, Ferri is back to working off-duty details in addition to her regular shift, but she won’t have to wait until next fall to coach again. Quigley asked her to coach the La Salle boys volleyball team in the spring. She said she would think about it and let him know by Jan. 1, but she couldn’t wait that long. One day last week she called and said yes.

“It’s so much fun,” she said.

mszostak@projo.com