The NCAA volleyball coaching carousel spins even in the summer. Here’s an update.
American University has a new women’s volleyball head coach.
Grand Canyon promoted from within to fill its vacancy in beach volleyball.
There’s been a firing, beach hirings and some sad news.
And South Florida now has a 7-foot-tall indoor assistant, an Olympian I’ve never met but am tied to in an interesting but still maddeningly frustrating way.
AMERICAN HIRES KIM: Former AU assistant Ahen Kim has returned to the Washington, D.C., school, this time as the head coach to replace the late Barry Goldberg. Goldberg died in March after a year-long battle with cancer. He was at American for 34 years.
Most recently Kim had success at Brown after serving as Goldberg’s assistant from 2012-17. He was at Brown for five seasons, which included taking the Bears to the NCAA Tournament in 2021, the program’s first NCAA trip since 1998. But after last season, to coach a professional team in South Korea.
American finished 15-15 last season, and 7-9 in the Patriot League. AU went to the NCAA Tournament 18 times from 1997 through 2019.
Click here for the American news release.
Kim is married to Amy Pauly, most recently an assistant at USC who earlier this month took the job as the head coach of the Orlando franchise in the Pro Volleyball Federation.
GRAND CANYON PROMOTES RUMMEL: GCU’s Kristen Rohr left earlier this month to move basically across town to become the head coach at Arizona State. Four weeks later, GCU promoted associate head coach Abra Rummel to be its head coach. Rummel’s resume includes playing pro beach volleyball and five seasons as the head coach indoors at St. Francis Brooklyn.
Click here for the GCU news release.
FIU FIRES BUCK-CROCKETT: Olympian Rita Buck-Crockett, the only beach volleyball coach Florida International has ever had, was let go Tuesday. Buck-Crockett coached the indoors team and beach for 10 seasons and then last year went solely to the beach for the Miami school. FIU, ranked No. 13 nationally, made it to the NCAA beach tournament in May for the first time since 2018 and lost its first-round match to No. 4 Florida State 3-1.
Click here for the FIU news release.
UCLA HIRES LOIOLA: New head beach coach Jenny Johnson Jordan has brought back Jose Loiola to Westwood. The 2000 beach Olympian was a volunteer coach for UCLA in…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Volleyballmag.com…