Why am I doing this?  

It was 2011, and for the second time, Lana Soukup had just started coaching volleyball at the school. 

Why do I keep going down the same road?

Everything felt rough — it was a new and old school at the same time, she was going through a divorce and kept pushing herself to find the next best thing. Only two things felt certain: her love for her kids, and that she owed volleyball a debt she could never pay. 

But as she thought about these questions during a leadership class, she added a third to her list: who she no longer wanted to be. 

“I always thought it was athletics that saved my life, but it was the people who believed in me,” Soukup said. “I realized that type of person wasn’t just who I wanted to be — it was who I needed to be.”

Now a food science teacher, Soukup said she tries to channel the athletic mindset into everything she does, whether it’s in the kitchen or the stands watching her children’s games. 

“Sometimes, you have to take a second,” Soukup said. “You have to think about the good and the bad and figure out what you want to keep doing — not just [the] next big thing you’re going to do. You have to stop and smell the roses.”

Soukup had a difficult upbringing. Growing up, her family faced financial difficulties, but that didn’t stop them from loving her; her grandparents were always there for her, while she said the love from her parents was a form of tough love.  

“I always wanted the ‘perfect’ family and the ‘perfect’ life, but that doesn’t exist,” Soukup said.

From when Soukup was 10 years old until she turned 18, her family went through a rough patch. Her mom was working nights and her dad lost his business, forcing them to move to Irving away from the safety net of her grandparents.   

“I wasn’t grateful growing up,” Soukup said. “I wasn’t mature enough to understand everything my parents were doing for me. Things might not have been perfect, but I turned it into undeserved anger.”

After a rough few years, Soukup graduated from high school in 1997 and went on to start her college volleyball and academic career at Nicholls State University. Though she didn’t realize it then, her grandpa’s wise words and her grandma’s constant love paired with all her parents did to give her the life she had made her the person she is. 

“My parents and grandparents pouring into me at such a young age was always something that picked me up,” Soukup said. “No matter what, I knew I could go back home. That was the foundation of my life.” 

As her freshman year continued, Soukup began caring less and less about academics. She skipped classes daily and went out with friends every night. When one of her suitemates kept inviting her to church — an invite other volleyball players accepted — Soukup kept wrinkling her nose. 

“She was down on her knees, begging for my soul,” Soukup said. “At the time, I had rough edges and a chip on my shoulder. She shouldn’t have been so kind to me, but she just kept praying and being there [for me.]”

A part of her kept thinking about athletic and academic accolades from her high school career, and she couldn’t escape the nagging thought: I should be better. She said “yes” to her friend and started attending church regularly. 

“I went out one night and knew I was done,” Soukup said. “I didn’t want to [continue] going down the same path every day. I wanted to change my life.” 

During her sophomore year, Soukup attended classes more regularly and went out with her friends less. But after being caught skipping once, she was put on probation. 

“I was like ‘What?’” Soukup said. “I had been hell on wheels a year before, and then I was turning it all around, but I skipped one class. I was struggling with [the] consequences of my previous behaviors.”

Soon after Soukup transferred to Dallas Baptist University  for a fresh start. Communication with old friends from Nicholls State began to fade. 

“I thought that I should’ve been this perfect person,” Soukup said. “I was a woman of faith and I was an adult, so I didn’t want to focus on anything from my past. I just wanted to keep going.”

Food science teacher Lana Soukup poses with her two oldest sons Reid Mitchell and Eli Mitchell for a photo. “She is tough,” Reid said. “She’s a winner, whether it’s as a teacher, coach or mom. She wants the best out of everybody, and she’s willing to sacrifice her own priorities to do that. That’s how my mom is. She’s the most selfless person I know.” (Photo provided by Lana Soukup)

After finishing her playing career in 2001, Soukup began to coach club volleyball. One year later, she took a part-time job at Prestonwood Christian University. 

“Athletics was my way out,” Soukup said. “It was a way to be successful and have an escape from everything else. That mindset went into coaching, too. I wanted success. It was almost selfish; I had a strong drive to win above all else.”

In 2003, Soukup was preparing to fly with her team for an out-of-state tournament. Her then-husband called and asked if she had boarded yet, then told her to call him when she landed.

When she landed, he told her the news: her grandpa had passed away. 

“[My family was] scared how I would react, but I just felt numb,” Soukup said. “I didn’t know what to feel. He was the greatest person I ever met, and it was hard to comprehend he was gone.”

Her grandfather had written her letters and advice throughout her years for birthdays and milestone moments. A few months after her grandpa passed, Soukup cried for the first time in years. 

“I lost it,” Soukup said. “I read his letters and couldn’t control [myself] anymore.”

The team won state the next year, but it didn’t fill the void Soukup felt. She became the freshman coach at Hebron the next year, where the team went on to win the state championship. That void began to fill when she had her sons, Reid and Eli Mitchell in 2005 and 2007. 

“I was still struggling with the concept of unconditional love,” Soukup said. “That was something I couldn’t grasp. Everything felt like it should come with a condition. But then I had Reid and — for the first time — I understood what unconditional really meant.”

Three years later, Soukup and her then-husband divorced. She joined a program, Celebrate Recovery, at her church. She took a leadership program the following year. In both, Soukup tried to reflect on who she wanted to be. 

“It hit me that I was holding onto so much anger,” Soukup said. “It was tiring. I didn’t want to be holding onto it anymore — I wanted to be positive and joyful.”

Above all else, Soukup tried to put her family first. When Soukup’s previous husband began coaching at another school, Reid stopped attending Hebron and played football at Plano West. The games against Hebron were always hardest for him because he grew up with both parents teaching at the school. He said Soukup helped get him through it. 

“It didn’t matter what symbol she was wearing, so long as it was mine,” Reid said. “She threw a wolf pack on her shirt and was my biggest supporter.”

In 2017, Soukup made a decision that changed everything and took her away from a constant in her life: to quit coaching. She had just won a state championship and gotten married again, but despite those parts of her life going just how she wanted, she didn’t want another second of her time to be put into anything other than her kids.   

“I remember thinking ‘What do I want to do?’” Soukup said. “I could kill it as head coach at Marcus — which had always been a dream job for me — [but] I didn’t want to do it. That’s how I knew I was done. I thought: ‘I’m ready to just be a mom. I’m ready to just go to the games and love them, but love them from a distance.’” 

Reid and Eli grew up in a constant sports environment with both of their parents being coaches and involved in sports. Soukup went to Reid first before making the decision to leave coaching for good.

“My first reaction was ‘What are you doing?’” Reid said. “I had known nothing else in my life, and I was shocked. But then when I stepped back and looked at it, I realized that she was doing this all for my brothers and I. [I] knew there was nothing else I could ever expect from my mom.” 

In 2018, right after Soukup had her third son, Sawyer, head volleyball coach Karin Keeney asked her to come back and coach for a year since Hebron had an opening for a Track and Cross Country coach, but it didn’t stick. The food science teacher position opened up, and she did a virtual interview for the job. 

“She’s found a way to find her role here at Hebron,” Eli said. “She found a great role in food science and was able to flourish in that.”

Soukup said being a mom is her priority, whether it’s at home or in the classroom. Her goal is to make food science at Hebron more than just a class about cooking and sanitizing. 

“I don’t know how my life would be without any of my kids,” Soukup said. “I’m just such a mom. Even in the classroom, I feel like a mom, not a teacher. I care about teaching about life more than food science.” 

Pitcher Eli Mitchell hugs his mom, food science teacher Lana Soukup, before the baseball game against Flower Mound April 22. (Krista Fleming)

With the amount of time coaches and teachers spend with their students, Soukup said she views her students like her kids. Head volleyball coach Rachel Buckley, who is also a Hebron alum, has seen Soukup in that role ever since she was little, watching her older sister be coached by Soukup.  

“I’ve always seen her in that light,” Buckley said. “She’s always been a mom figure of Hebron; it’s ingrained in who she is.”

Soukup tries to use her own experiences to help students learn from her mistakes as they grow up. Especially with teaching a senior-heavy class, she emphasizes respect in her classroom as her main rule. 

“Any student she has is really lucky that they get to have her,” algebra teacher Kayla Lambert said. “She keeps it real. What her students see here at school is just the person she is.”

While being an involved teacher, Soukup said she also does what she can to be present in all four of her kids’ lives. She attends every game of Eli’s that she can at Hebron, not just for school spirit, but to cheer on her son. 

“When I see her in the stands, I know she always has my back and she’s always going to be there,” Eli said. “She’s always going to be present. She’s like a built-in best friend. She’s a great mom, and that loving side you see here, she brings it home.”

Even though coaching on a court turned into cooking in a kitchen, Soukup said she has found a home at Hebron in her own way, giving her the ability to be present in her career and family.

“My family is the most important thing to me,” Soukup said. “[My family is] who I want to be with. I want to be at all the games. I want to be there for all the moments. The way I was raised is with me every second. 

“There were ups and downs, but I wouldn’t change my life in any way because it made me who I am. If I could, I would give my younger self a hug and tell her that it’ll be OK [and] that she can stop and smell the roses every once in a while.”