AVCA tabs Morehead’s Gordon to replace DeBoer as AVCA executive director

The American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) announced Thursdsay that Jaime Gordon will become its new executive director. He takes over for Kathy DeBoer, who announced her retirement from the AVCA earlier this month. Gordon is expected to start at the AVCA in June.

Gordon was the longtime coach at Morehead State and this past January resigned to concentrate on his other job at the Kentucky school as athletic director. Read about that here.

“The role of executive director requires a unique combination of coaching and administrative experience. Dr. Jaime Gordon comes to the AVCA as a dedicated and successful professional in both spaces,” said Keegan Cook, president of the AVCA Board of Directors and coach at Minnesota, in an AVCA news release.

“Jaime’s decision to pivot from his role as a successful sitting D1 athletic director and dedicate himself wholly to the AVCA is one that I certainly respect. I feel this is a moment of celebration that the sport of volleyball and the AVCA has grown to a position where we can attract a candidate as qualified and experienced as Jaime.”

Gordon has spent the past 20 years in athletics at Morehead State where he became the winningest coach in the school’s history in any sport before ascending to the athletics director chair in 2019. His leadership skills led him to excel at fundraising, facility improvements, and critical partnerships.

“I am overwhelmed by this incredible opportunity to serve the sport of volleyball and the profession of coaching as the executive director of the AVCA,” Gordon said in the AVCA news release. “I am grateful for the trust that Keegan and the Board have placed in me to lead an association that has profoundly influenced me and thousands of other coaches for the past four decades.

“The concept of succeeding Kathy DeBoer is daunting. She has been a role model for coaching, administering, and leading others. I pledge to tirelessly continue to advance and protect the vision started by Terry and Andy 42 years ago (Terry Liskevych and Andy Banachowski founded the AVCA IN 1981), nurtured by Sandy Vivas, and developed by Kathy for the past 17 years.”

Gordon earned his Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Morehead State in 2021.