KAYSVILLE -- She won two state 3-A girls volleyball titles as a player with the Darts in 1974 and 1975, then guided Viewmont to consecutive 5-A championships in 2003 and 2004.
Can Lori Salvo write another winning chapter at Davis High, where she is the new volleyball coach?
"The school opened up the position and I applied for it," Salvo said. "This was a win-win situation for me. I was happy with things at Viewmont; I spent 19 great years there. Change sounded good to me.
"This was a chance to retire at my alma mater and where I started my career," she said. "I really wanted this job, but if things hadn't worked out I would have been fine staying at Viewmont. It was a good opportunity for me to come here and try to win a state volleyball title at the school where I played on the last state volleyball title team."
Salvo, who is in her 30th year of teaching and coaching, got the Darts' coaching position the last week of the 2009-10 school year. She will teach healthy lifestyles at Davis, and be an assistant basketball coach on Amy Wright's staff.
"I met with the Viewmont girls at lunch on Wednesday (June 2) -- I got told I had the job on Tuesday (June 1) -- and after school on Wednesday I met with the Davis girls," Salvo said. "It was a very emotional week for me; it was brutal. I felt good about the reception I got from the girls."
Salvo had a team camp at Davis on June 14-18, followed by another team camp at Hunter the next week.
"Top to bottom, I've never had this much talent," she said. "My biggest challenge is keeping everybody happy. The gym is going to be competitive every day.
"It's so nice to have backups at every position," Salvo said. "We have 14 players in the core group, and that's a good thing to have. We haven't proven anything yet. If we can't serve and pass, we won't win a match."
The Darts went 8-0 in sweeping the Tournament of Champions on Friday and Saturday at Skyline.
"I've been living here in the gym getting ready for the season," Salvo said. "One of my toughest challenges is putting the right players in the right position. The girls are capable of doing whatever they want to do, and I say that with every team I've coached.
"I will give the girls all I can, but the rest is up to them," she said. "We're working on mental and skill development. I can't decide what offense we'll run, either a 5-1 or a 6-2. It's wide-open right now.
"This move has energized me," Salvo said. "I'll keep doing it until I don't have the love for the game any more or I can't give it to the kids. I bring experience of winning a state championship as both a player and a coach.
"I keep up on the latest and greatest in the game," she said. "I bring a lot of enthusiasm. I am positive and I like to have fun. I'm still evolving as a coach, and I want to learn more and become a better coach."
Outside of the 2003 and 2004 state 5-A championship teams, the 2007 Vikings' team ranks as one of Salvo's favorites.
"It was such a fun year; we took third at state," she said. "The girls were on such a mission and in charge of their own destiny."
Salvo is a 1976 Davis High graduate, where she played volleyball, basketball, track and tennis for three years. She was a student teacher at Davis in the spring of 1981. In the fall of 1981, Salvo was helping Ann Gilbert with volleyball at Davis and at the end of the first term she got hired at Ben Lomond.
She was the Scots' girls basketball coach and helped with track the next year, spending four years as volleyball and basketball coach. After five years at Mueller Park Junior High coaching volleyball, basketball and track, Salvo started at Viewmont in 1991.
She coached girls basketball for 14 consecutive years and 15 total, becoming volleyball coach in 1999. The Vikings' only non 5-A tournament appearances during Salvo's 11 years came in 2000 and 2009. Viewmont was the 2002 state 5-A volleyball runner-up.
Salvo was a three-sport star at the University of Utah, and a 2008 inductee into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame Foundation -- displayed in Salt Lake City's EnergySolutions Arena -- for basketball, volleyball and track.
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