USA MEN'S COACH PROFILE

Ron Larsen

Assistant Coach
USA Men's National Volleyball Team
Fourth Year

Ron Larsen (Lafayette, Calif.) is in his fourth season as the top assistant coach for the USA Men's National Volleyball Team and has served many important roles for the team over the past four years.

Most recently, Larsen took over for U.S. Head Coach Hugh McCutcheon at the 2008 Olympic Games after McCutcheon's father-in-law was killed and his mother-in-law was gravely injured by an attacker while sightseeing in Beijing, China.

Larsen coached the U.S. Men's Team to three pool play victories against Venezuela (Aug. 10; 25-18, 25-18, 22-25, 21-25, 15-10), Italy (Aug. 12; 24-26, 25-22, 25-15, 25-21) and Bulgaria (Aug. 14; (27-29, 25-21, 25-14, 26-24) before McCutcheon returned to the team, which went on to win the Olympic gold medal for the first time since 1988.

In 2007, Larsen served as the head coach for the U.S. Men's Team that won the silver medal at the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Formerly the head coach of the UC San Diego men's volleyball team, Larsen was hired as an assistant coach for the USA Men on April 13, 2005.

"You need someone who knows how to work hard, because you put in a lot of hours," explained McCutcheon when asked what qualities he was looking for in an assistant coach. "You also want them to be good in the gym. I think you also want someone who is an upstanding individual, someone with honesty, integrity and loyalty.

"Ron was an easy choice because he filled all of those criteria," McCutcheon added. "He has a wealth of coaching experience and I know that philosophically we're aligned, so that's good. He is very passionate about the game. I also think for me, being a younger coach, Ron is a good fit because he has been in the game for so many years."

Larsen, the 2004 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) Coach of the Year, completed six seasons as the UCSD head coach. Larsen came to UCSD in 2000—in the school's final year of NCAA Division III affiliation—and led the Tritons to one of the most memorable seasons in the program's history. UCSD won the Molten Division III Men's Volleyball Invitational Championship that season and recorded the most wins (nine) for a Triton team in 10 seasons.

That year he also led the team to its first MPSF victory in three seasons. Competing as the only Division II team and the only non-scholarship program in the nation's toughest men's volleyball conference, the Tritons have continued to make strides in meeting the formidable challenge.

The 2004 season saw UCSD go 8-21 overall and 4-18 in the MPSF. The season included wins against No. 11 Penn State, No. 9 UC Irvine and No. 7 UC Santa Barbara.

The win over the Gauchos marked two program firsts: defeating UCSB and giving the Tritons four victories in the MPSF, the most in school history.

Larsen came to UCSD from the University of Rutgers-Newark. A veteran of seven seasons at the New Jersey university, Larsen has coaching roots in the University of California (UC) system.

His coaching career began at the University of California- Berkeley, where he led the Bears' men's volleyball team to a record of 102-29 at the club level.
He coached at Cal from 1980-84 and again from 1987-89. He also served as an assistant coach of the women's volleyball team at St. Mary's College from 1987-88 before moving on to the University of California, Davis in 1989.

At Davis, he served as assistant coach of the women's team for four seasons and as head coach of the men's team from 1991-93, leading the Aggies to a 65-31 record and a fifth-place finish at the 1993 national club volleyball tournament.

Larsen served as head men's and women's coach at Rutgers-Newark from 1993-99, compiling a record of 97-80 in men's volleyball and 111-79 with the women's team. The men's team was consistently ranked in the nation's top 15.

Larsen was named New Jersey Athletic Conference Coach of the Year in 1996 and 1998 and Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA) Coach of the Year in 1998.

Larsen's coaching experience also includes the 1995 USA Olympic Festival, where he served as head coach of the North Men's Team and led his squad to a silver medal. He also coached the 1996 USA Boys Youth National Team, featuring the nation's top 18 high school players.