Erika Bute takes unconventional path to becoming Beavers’ head coach, strives for program stability (2025)

When Erika Bute was called into Bemidji State director of athletics Britt Lauritson’s office on Oct. 29, she knew what was imminent.

Bute was about to be named the BSU volleyball team’s interim head coach.

The Beavers started the 2024 season with Kevin Ulmer at the helm. He was hired in 2016 and coached the program for nine seasons. On Sept. 17, Ulmer died after a three-year battle with cancer.

Assistant coach Steph Remley was promoted to interim head coach. Remley routinely filled in for Ulmer’s game-day head coaching duties while he was hospitalized.

In late October, however, Remley resigned from her position. The Beavers had one coach left.

Just 388 days after Bute helped lead Augustana to a 3-1 win over Bemidji State as the Vikings’ fifth-year libero, she was given roughly 30 hours to prepare for her first match as a head coach without any hired assistants.

“I felt like I didn’t have time for my emotions to play a huge factor,” Bute said. “I could relate to our team so much – not in the sense of what they’re going through, but I was just a player a year ago. I couldn’t imagine being a player in that situation, so my focus shifted toward the things I could do for them at that time. I wanted to make it seamless.”

Bute took the Beavers to Crookston to play the Golden Eagles a day later. They suffered a tight 3-2 loss as UMC pulled away in the fifth set.

Three days later, Bute got her first win. After falling behind 2-1 against Minnesota State Moorhead, Bemidji State staged a 3-2 comeback victory.

The Beavers finished their season two weeks later with an 8-18 record, tallying the second-most wins of any BSU volleyball team since 2011.

After a long stretch of turmoil, Bemidji State had the option to start fresh with an outside hire as its 15th head coach. Instead, BSU opted to put the whistle around Bute’s neck, giving the program reins to a coach less than a year removed from graduating college.

Courtesy / Brent Cizek Photography

Bute’s story isn’t one of circumstance but rather one of merit.

“Through an incredibly competitive applicant pool, Erika consistently demonstrated the composure, the empathy and the passion to lead the next generation of Beaver volleyball,” Lauritsen said in a release on Feb. 7. “Her accolades as a student-athlete, her connections in our region and her incredible volleyball mind will allow her to hit the ground running.”

After Bute’s initial promotion in October, she sat in Lauritsen’s office to compose herself. She decided to make two phone calls.

“The first was to my college best friend,” Bute said. “She works remotely at BSN. I told her I needed help for the last three weeks of the season. She drove up a few days later and helped with practices and games.”

Piper Asche spent five seasons at Augustana with Bute as a middle blocker. Once she got to Bemidji, she was officially rostered as a volunteer assistant.

“When she got here, she joked that when I’m a head coach again in 10 years that I should hire her as an assistant,” Bute said. “I said, ‘Well, maybe we can try in three months.’”

Bute’s second call was to Jennifer Jacobs, her head coach at Augustana.

Courtesy / Augustana Athletics

“After I told her, I said something about us having a game tomorrow and if there’s any little things I need to know about the head coaching side of things before I go into it,” Bute said. “How do I put my lineup in? It was all stuff like that. She just kept saying, ‘This is so crazy. This is so crazy.’ I’m like, yes, I know it’s crazy, but it’s what we’re doing.”

Jacobs and Bute go way back.

Bute, an Alden native, played club volleyball for Northern Lights. Jacobs was her head coach before taking the Augustana job in 2017.

Throughout Bute’s decorated collegiate career – American Volleyball Coaches Association All-America Honorable Mention, two-time NSIC Libero of the Year, four-time NSIC All-Conference, NSIC Outstanding Senior of the Year and College Sports Communicators Academic All-America – Jacobs saw what Ulmer and BSU eventually saw when she applied to be the Beavers’ second assistant coach.

“I was trying to keep her here,” Jacobs said. “I was pushing really hard to open a position for her to keep her with us. She knows what she’s doing, but Kevin was adamant that she went to Bemidji. And I know why. She’s earned the respect around the league, and she’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

Courtesy / Brent Cizek Photography

Bute wrapped up her fifth and final collegiate season as a player in the fall of 2023. She stayed for an extra semester to get a second master’s degree. After finishing her bachelor’s degree in marketing, Bute got her sports administration and leadership graduate degree and an MBA.

With two masters in her back pocket, she didn’t need any more schooling, effectively eliminating her from any graduate assistant positions as a coach. However, she found a similar position as a second assistant at BSU.

“It was kind of backward how I went into it,” Bute said. “It was similar to a GA, but it was actually paid. I applied, and Kevin reached out immediately. I’m just super grateful for it. I wouldn’t say I was panicking, but I probably didn’t need to stay in Sioux Falls the spring of my fifth year.”

The decision to stick around her final semester led Bute to apply for Bemidji State’s open position last spring. Immediately, Ulmer was enamored with her potential as a coaching candidate.

Bute grew up in a coaching household. Her mother, Jolene, is the longtime head coach of the Alden-Conger volleyball team.

“I went to her practices when I was growing up before I was her player,” Bute said. “It kind of made me view the game from a coaching perspective, but I wasn’t set on coaching going into college. I just knew I loved athletics.”

Bute started coaching club volleyball in Sioux Falls while attending AU. She also took the lead on several Augustana volleyball camps toward the end of her collegiate career.

When Bute approached Jacobs as an upperclassman asking if she should get into coaching, Jacobs felt her choice was obvious.

“She’s always been a leader,” Jacobs said. “She was always that player who could navigate the go-between from the players to the coaches. She did a good job of upholding team standards while also giving the coaches the truth on things that we wouldn’t get. It was a no-brainer when she told me she wanted to get into coaching.”

Courtesy / Augustana Athletics / Peyton Bartsch

Bute admitted she had trepidations about being a college-aged collegiate coach heading into her first season with the Beavers.

“I was very confident in my ability to play, but how am I going to teach somebody else how to do it?” Bute said. “The players were so close in age to me, and you never really know how that’s going to go. I have to give a lot of credit to the team. They didn’t care that I was a year older than them. … They get a lot of credit for respecting and accepting me.”

Bute also commended Ulmer for his guidance during their time on staff together. He encouraged her to voice her opinion on program operations, validating her status with his players.

When Ulmer’s health declined, Bute’s role increased. When he died, she was elevated to the top assistant just months after playing her final collegiate game.

“In the moment, you don’t really have time to think about how crazy it is,” Bute said. “It was all about what the team needs, what’s next and how can we keep this season afloat. We had eight freshmen and the rest were basically upperclassmen. It was very different how those two groups handled the situation with Kevin.

Courtesy / Augustana Athletics / Peyton Bartsch

“It was kind of hard for me to relate to the ones who were older, but I think it was nice for them to have somebody who was like, yes, I am grieving with the situation, but somebody needs to do the things we have to do to move forward right now. There’s no right answer to that process, but I’m so grateful to have had those girls.”

When Bute was given the interim tag, she leaned on her players even more while offering them the foundation to lean on to get through the rest of the season.

“Of course, I had doubts in myself, but I didn’t need to say them to the team because they didn’t need to hear that,” Bute said. “After our first practice, the players told me that if I needed anything, I should let them know. They really helped me take care of the nitty-gritty things like food for the bus, what we’re wearing – all of that side of things. They were very prepared with their scouting reports. Players in that situation didn’t have to respond like that, but they did.”

Next on the list for Bute is rounding out the coaching staff. Bemidji State is in the hiring process for an assistant coach, and Bute said she wants it to be extensive, valuing the right fit over an immediate one.

“She’s got good people around her, and she’s always got me,” Jacobs said. “She’s earned the respect from the coaches and programs around the conference, and our conference coaches are pretty close. She can do the Xs and Os, she can do the grinding. She just has to figure out who she wants to be as a head coach, and that takes time for anybody. It doesn’t matter if you’re 21 or 45.”

Asche ultimately turned down Bute’s pleas to apply for the open assistant position, saying she didn’t want to “live in the North Pole.”

Along with a new-look coaching staff, Bute will also have fresh faces on the court. Bemidji State has 15 underclassmen on its 20-player roster.

Despite having had three head coaches in less than two months for a program that hasn’t finished above .500 in conference play since 1999, no BSU player entered the transfer portal.

“Not only is everybody on our current team staying, we had seven commits all sign their letter of intent,” Bute said. “It’ll be a young team, but I feel like they’re really bought into the changes that were made.

“The team right now is already chasing for it. If you’re a .500 team in the NSIC, it’s a good season. Longer term, obviously, the goal is much higher. At .500, it usually puts you in a conference tournament spot, and that’s the goal right now. You can be eighth in the NSIC and be ranked nationally.”

Courtesy / Brent Cizek Photography

As for goals in the short term, Bute wants her players to garner a more confident competitive mindset day to day.

“My biggest challenge from the coaching side of it is getting them to learn how to win,” Bute said. “I feel like I can relate to my experience. At Augie, we were a conference tournament team every year but were still in the middle of the conference. It wasn’t like we were dominating; we still felt like we were going to win every night.”

Bute got a different perspective on success in the NSIC in her first season at BSU.

“It’s a different level of (competitiveness), but it’s a lot of hoping they can win every night. I have to figure out how to make that shift so they can go into games with an attitude that they know they’re going to win.”

As for collegiate coaches around the Midwest, there was some confusion surrounding Bemidji State’s hiring of Bute. Jacobs did her part to put their concerns to rest.

“When I see people while I’m on the road recruiting who don’t know my connection to (Bute), people will ask about who Bemidji hired,” Jacobs said. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know her really well, and she’s good.’ It’s not that shocking to me, it’s just not. It was only a matter of time before she became a head coach, so why not do it now? Bemidji deserves a lot of credit for choosing her. It’s rare to see these days that a school can see the good things in her and just go with it.”