USA MEN'S COACH PROFILE

Ron Larsen

Assistant Coach
USA Men’s National Volleyball Team
Third Year

Ron Larsen begins his third season as assistant coach for the USA Men’s National Volleyball Team.

Larsen, formerly the head coach of the UC San Diego men’s volleyball team, was hired as an assistant coach for the USA Men on April 13, 2005. He serves as the top assistant coach to Team USA head coach Hugh McCutcheon, who was hired on Feb. 3, 2005, to replace longtime head coach Doug Beal, USA Volleyball’s new chief executive officer.

“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.

“I’m excited about the opportunity and the challenges; I’m looking forward to it,” said Larsen. “It’s an honor to be able to coach the best players in the United States and it’s an honor to be able to compete against the best players in the world. I think it’s a chance to do something that I have always wanted to do. It’s going to be great working with Hugh and Doug...it will be a great experience.”

Larsen’s experience in the men’s collegiate game, particularly in the highly competitive MPSF, was a big draw, said McCutcheon.

“For me, having been out of the college game for the last four years, to be able to get Ron—who has been in the thick of things—was a really big deal,” he admitted.  “Obviously we want to get new guys into our program; I think there is a wealth of young talent out there.  The fact that Ron has been in that league and seen those players—and of course seen the best teams from the EIVA and the MIVA—helps us a lot.”

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.