Wallace named coach of the year

By Brian Witter

After a remarkably successful year as the head coach of the Santa Clara women's volleyball team, Jon Wallace was recently named the National Coach of the Year by Volleyball Magazine.

"I'm really happy to be named Volleyball Magazine's Coach of the Year. It was really the one periodical that covers volleyball and has done so for many years," Wallace said. "It was the first volleyball magazine I ever bought, and to be named their coach of the year is a great honor. I couldn't be happier."

Under Wallace, the Broncos, who finished fourth nationally, completed an amazing run through the regular season in addition to the postseason NCAA Tournament. Santa Clara knocked off three Top-25 teams in the postseason including Pepperdine, Arizona and Bay Area rival Stanford. The team finished with the West Coast Conference title, an overall record of 27-5 and a spot in the Final Four in San Antonio last month.

"Our coach always sets goals for us," sophomore All-American Crystal Matich said. "At first, our goal was to win our conference. When we won the WCC, he told us that our next goal was to make it to the Final Four. After all the glitz and glamour from being there wore off, he really helped us to focus on what we needed to get done on the court."

As well as being named coach of the year, Wallace also won the WCC Coach of the Year, American Volleyball Coaches Association Pacific Region Coach of the Year and Collegiate Volleyball Update's Coach of the Year awards.

Wallace took a young squad that had finished 18-9 overall with a third-place finish in the WCC the year before and coached them to the Final Four, the first unseeded team in history to do so.

Before starting at Santa Clara, Wallace was an assistant coach at Pepperdine, another nationally-ranked WCC program. During his seven-year stint there, Wallace helped coach the Waves to a .562 winning percentage and a 65-33 record in the conference.

As a volleyball player at UC Santa Barbara, Wallace led the Gauchos as team captain to the NCAA Championship match where the team ultimately fell to USC his junior year. He went on to play professionally in the United States and Switzerland before he began his coaching career.

In his seven years at Santa Clara, Wallace has led the Broncos to a .729 winning percentage and an impressive record in the WCC at 78-20. He has led each of his teams to a postseason appearance in the NCAAs while never finishing lower than third in the WCC. Additionally, he has also coached four All-Americans -- Becky Potter, Cassie Perret, Anna Cmaylo and Matich.

Contact Brian Witter at (408) 551-1918 or bwitter@scu.edu.