In conjunction with the 2016 Women’s NCAA Championship Final Four Tournament in Columbus, Ohio, the American Volleyball Coaches’ Association hosted its annual convention and awards ceremony earlier this month. Among the festivities was the induction of 3 coaches into the AVCA Hall of Fame class of 2016 – the 14th annual class to be inducted. Their addition brings the total number of honored coaches to 73, or about 4-per-year since the inaugural 23 were inducted at the 2003 AVCA convention.
Kathleen Brasfield, Karen Davis, and Joan Sitterly make up the class that were honored at the 2016 Coaches Honor Luncheon. Read briefly about each inductee below, and then watch a video of each coach’s accomplishments, courtesy of the AVCA:
- Brasfield spent 33 years a at Angelo State University, starting as women’s volleyball coach in 1978 before eventually becoming the women’s athletics director. She was an 8-time recipient of the Lonestar Conference Coach of the Year award and earned a career 647 victories. In 2007, she was named a coach on the LSC’s 75th-anniversary all-time team. She has also served as chair of the CNAA Division II Management Council and was the 2011 Athletics Director of the Year for the West Region.
- Davis coached for 21 years at St. Joseph’s Academy in St. Louis, Missouri, amassing a 611-138 (.815) winning record in that time. Her teams have won 8 state championships and never had a team GPA below 3.5. Administratively, she served as the president of the Missouri High School Volleyball Coaches’ Association.
- Sitterly spent 22 years from 1983-2004 as the head coach of Division III SUNY Cortland in New York. In that time, she had an 816-234 (.777) career record and became just the second coach in NCAA Division III history to earn 800 career wins. Her team went to the NCAA tournament in 18 of her last 20 seasons and won 13 conference titles (including the SUNYAC East Division Championship every year form 1985-2001). She was a 70time honoree as AVCA Region Coach of the Year. In 2005, she took over as the school’s athletics director, from which she retired in 2010. She was also the head volleyball (and basketball) coach at Newark High School from 1974-1983 where her team won 5 Finger Lakes League titles and a Western New York championship.
Videos honoring each coach are below:
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