Chloe and Emily Allen are athletically gifted sisters who could have taken up any sport and achieved a degree of success. That they both became volleyball players can be attributed to their parents’ choice of babysitters.
“We wanted the kids to see positive, female role models,” said Ken Allen, their father. “Our neighbor was a good friend of [former UCSB coach] Kathy Gregory. We hired her volleyball players. They were really good babysitters.”
The sitters included Brooke Niles and Erica Menzel, who were really good hitters, too. They played on one of UCSB’s best volleyball teams (30-3 record) in 2002. That made an impression on the Allen girls. A decade later, Chloe joined her sister, who’s a year older, on the varsity volleyball team at San Marcos High. Their coach: Erica Menzel-Downing.