Mike Sealy, whose UCLA team failed to make the NCAA Tournament for the second time in five seasons, has resigned after 13 years as the coach at his alma mater.
UCLA finished this season 16-13, 10-10 and in seventh place in the Pac-12.
The Bruins won the NCAA title under Sealy in 2011 but then only finished higher than fourth two times since, when UCLA was second in 2016 and in 2021 when it lost in the third round of the NCAA Tournament to eventual-champion Wisconsin.
Sealy was a star setter for UCLA (1990-93), winning the NCAA title his senior year. He was 273-128 as the Bruins’ coach.
“Mike is and will always be a great Bruin. He won a national championship as both a student-athlete and a head coach,” UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond said in a news story on the school’s website.
The same story had this quote from Sealy:
“I’d like to thank Dan Guerrero and Petrina Long for giving me the initial opportunity to be a head coach at UCLA and Martin Jarmond for extending that tenure,” Sealy said. “I have to thank Andy Banachowski for building the legacy which is the foundation that I’ve been fortunate enough to stand on over these 13 years. I will be forever grateful for Al Scates for giving me the opportunity to come to UCLA twice, once as a player and again as a coach. It’s been an amazing chapter full of euphoric highs and devastating lows and I would not change one thing from that journey. I’ve had the privilege of working with and being surrounded by inspired and talented coaches in our gym, the halls of our athletic department and in the overall volleyball community.
“I have to thank all the players over the years who displayed courage, resilience and dedication to themselves, their teams and the university. Sue Enquist once told me to never judge a player for not having the same passion I had for the sport of volleyball because I have made it my life direction, and to do that demands an extreme level of passion. There are too many days where my passion is less than the players’, so I know it is time to take a break, make a change.”
Just 12 programs have won it since the NCAA began holding women’s volleyball championships in 1981 and UCLA is one of them: Stanford (9 times), Penn State (7), Nebraska (5), UCLA (4), Hawai’i (3), Long Beach State (3), USC (3), Pacific (2), Texas (2), Kentucky (1), Wisconsin (1) and Washington (1).
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