Last September, a month after head coach Sandy Hoffman's emotional farewell to the women's volleyball team at Bentley University, the school held a retirement reception to honor her decades of service to the program she started in 1982.

Addressing the gathering on the Waltham campus, Bentley president Gloria Larson spoke of how her close friend Ms. Hoffman had coped with a rare form of cancer.

"Like so many of you, I've personally watched Sandy face incredible adversity over the past 18 months with amazing grace and good humor," Larson said. "Like all of you, my respect and admiration for Sandy is boundless."

Larson also recalled visiting Ms. Hoffman at Massachusetts General Hospital, where "wouldn't you know, she was decked out in her Bentley warm-up suit, ready to get out of there as soon as possible and take on the world."

An inductee to the American Volleyball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, Ms. Hoffman died of adrenal cortical carcinoma Monday in the McCarthy Care Center in Sandwich. She was 57 and lived in Waltham and Hyannis.

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