What if coincidences don't exist? What if fate follows you until it catches up?

When Mark Rosen was home from college during the summer of 1986, he took a short drive to a volleyball tournament to check out a local female player who was then a high school sophomore.

"I heard about this girl, and I remember going to a high school match to see how good she was," said Rosen. "After I saw her play, she was as good as people said."

There was no conversation between the two that night. No eye contact either. Rosen got into his car and drove back to his home in Anchorage, Alaska.

Rosen was playing collegiate volleyball at the time, known by the locals as one of the best players in his hometown.

That sophomore would become one of the best ever to play volleyball from the state of Alaska.

Mark would occasionally run into her at social occasions or at volleyball venues, but since the two had an eight-year age difference and their lives were at different crossroads, the only link between them remained their love for volleyball.

1988: The girl contacts Mark about where to play volleyball in college. He suggests the University of Oregon. She picks Ohio State.

1989: They run into each other by chance in Hawaii. They exchange hellos.

1990: Rosen is an assistant coach at the University of Alaska at Anchorage; she is Ohio State's best volleyball player.

It's not until the fall of 1991 at Pauley Pavilion on the campus of UCLA, the sight of the collegiate volleyball Final Four, when fate finally catches up.

She is playing in the national semifinal for Ohio State. Mark arrives to scout the competition with a date; fate is just around the corner.

"We come out of the building, Pauley Pavilion, and we come around a corner, and she's with her mom and her club coach," Rosen explains. "We physically bump into each other. I'm with a date, and we're holding hands, and I thought in my head, 'I might ask this girl out over Christmas.' "

Luckily, the volleyball social circle in Alaska is as big as the ice-fishing circle in Hawaii. Mark quickly asks her out when the two returned home to Alaska for Christmas break.

Leisa says yes.

So, maybe it was love at fifth sight. Like volleyball, love takes time to perfect.

The two, so confident on the court, are nervous when they go out on their first date - a friendly game of volleyball.

"Neither of us really knew if it was a date or just volleyball," Mark said. "So it was funny because it evolved into a date, which I think we both intended or hoped, but neither of us wanted to assume that. The rest is history."

Mark and Leisa marry in May 1993 and now are the head volleyball coaches at the University of Michigan.

Until marriage, their lives played out like a maze, following different paths along the way, occasionally intertwining and ultimately uniting at the end.

Both grew up in Colorado and moved to Alaska as children. Rather than immediately taking to the game, they also developed a love for volleyball after playing other sports.

Mark played hockey in high school, joining his first volleyball club team when he was a senior in high school. He tried out for the team mainly to get out of school for a week.

"It was fun going to that big tournament in Canada," Rosen said. "My career in hockey was coming to an end and I was pretty good at volleyball. I just got hooked on it."

When Mark would return home during summers from college, he was still regarded as a hockey player, despite playing collegiate volleyball. Leisa swam for nine years before she developed a passion for volleyball. She joined the local club team Midnight Sun, where her coach pushed her to be one of the state's best players.

"I had a club coach that put me under his wing and pushed me to be the best," Leisa said. "He was the right coach for me, and he knew how to get everything out of me."

She was so talented that Sports Illustrated named her one of Alaska's 50 greatest sports figures of the 20th century.

Leisa's passion for volleyball wasn't extinguished after graduating from college, yet she faced a dilemma that most talented volleyball players experience.

"Leisa never really intended to go into coaching," Mark said." She just really wanted to play."

Opportunities arose for her to play volleyball in Italy and France, but Mark was in the United States, coaching at Cal-State Bakersfield. Leisa decided to apply for an assistant coaching position alongside her husband. But the college wouldn't hire her because Mark was the coach.

"Cal-State Bakersfield would not hire me even though I was probably the most qualified," Leisa said. "I had to go out and get a normal job."