Press Release courtesy of Tulane Athletics
Tulane beach volleyball Head Coach Wayne Holly announced Monday the addition of Ali Wood Lamberson to the staff as a volunteer assistant coach.
Lamberson returns to the Green Wave after spending the previous two seasons at Southern California, where she was an assistant coach and helped lead the program to a 2016 and 2017 NCAA National Championship. Prior to joining the USC Trojans, Lamberson spent the 2015 season as a volunteer assistant coach under Holly at Tulane, guiding the Wave to an 18-win season. That season, she mentored Jackie Wegner and Tea Juric, who tallied 30 victories and advanced to the AVCA National Pairs Championships.
“I am thrilled to welcome Ali back to coach with our program and grateful to have access to her wealth of knowledge and experience in the sport,” Holly said. “Ali is among the country’s premier teachers of the game and her coaching presence will positively impact everyone in this program. Ali will be involved in player development, analytics, film review, match preparation and in-game coaching. I’m looking forward to seeing the immediate and lasting influence she will have on our staff and our players.”
Lamberson served as the Head Coach of the USA U-17 Beach National Team from 2013-15, guiding her pairs to a historic gold and silver medal finish at the inaugural 2014 FIVB U-17 World Championships while also winning three consecutive USAV Beach High Performance Championship titles. Since 2007, Lamberson has served as a lead cadre member for USA Volleyball’s Beach Coaching Accreditation Program, teaching national BCAP and B-IMPACT courses and collaborating on curriculum development for future programs.
In 2006, Lamberson became USA Volleyball’s first full-time beach staff, serving as the Director of International and High Performance Beach Programs from 2006-13. She managed support and development of USAV’s Olympic, Pan Am, and Junior Beach athletes. She created elite athlete funding, sports medicine, and video scouting programs and served as the Team Leader for numerous international events, including the double gold medal 2008 Olympic Games.
In 2008, Lamberson launched USAV’s Beach High Performance Program comprised of the USA Youth and Junior Beach National Teams, the Beach High Performance tryouts and national camps, and the USAV Beach High Performance Championships, the premiere elite beach event for athletes ages 12-25. Under Lamberson’s direction, the USA Youth and Junior teams won more than six international medals.
Lamberson took the lead representing USAV’s support of adding sand volleyball to the NCAA Emerging Sports List. Providing guidance on topics as diverse as court construction, talent identification, and competition formatting, to hosting the annual USAV Beach Collegiate Challenge, Lamberson helped forge the relationship between the AVCA, NCAA, and USAV. She served on the AVCA Collegiate Championship Selection Committee from 2012-14 and the event’s Seeding Committee in 2013 and 2014.
Lamberson played on the AVP, FIVB, BVA and WPVA pro beach volleyball tours from 1992-2005, competing in 178 career tournaments. She earned a fifth-place finish at the 2001 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship in Austria with Danalee Bragado-Corso and was voted the BVA’s Top Server in 2000. She has four pro beach final four appearances to her credit, and since her retirement continues to play for fun.
Lamberson was an outside hitter at UC Irvine (1986-89) where she was a 1989 First Team All-Region Selection and led the Anteaters to their first-ever NCAA tournament appearance and Top 20 ranking in 1988. A three-time Scholar Athlete award winner and the 1990 Senior Scholar-Athlete of the Year, she graduated from UCI in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in English, and spent one season with Vfl. Oythe in Germany’s Bundesliga and one season with the PVL’s San Jose Stars.
She earned her master’s degree in behavioral science: negotiation and conflict resolution, from Cal State Dominguez Hills in 2003, where she also taught a graduate level course in Dispute Resolution for Sports. In 2005, Lamberson was certified as a mediator by the Los Angeles County Bar Association.
Lamberson has been married to John Lamberson since 2008 and has a daughter, Josephine.
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