Pro Volleyball Federation: Orlando gets a coach, franchises signing players galore
Orlando has a coach and Atlanta, Columbus, Grand Rapids, Omaha and San Diego have added players as the Pro Volleyball Federation continues to work towards its February 2024 debut.
PAULEY TO ORLANDO: Orlando doesn’t have a name or players, but it will be coached by Amy Pauly, who has been the associated head coach at USC the past three seasons. Pauly, who had a standout career as a libero at Alabama, had been the head coach at UAB for two seasons when she went to USC. She was also an assistant at South Carolina and Villanova.
Interestingly, Todd Dagenais left Centra Florida, which is in Orlando, to become head coach at the PVF’s Atlanta franchise.
Currently, the PVF has five other coaches.
The Grand Rapids Rise has Cathy George, the longtime coach at Michigan State.
The San Diego coach will be Olympian Tayyiba Haneef-Park who most recently was an assistant at Oregon.
The Columbus Fury hired Puerto Rican Angel Perez.
The Omaha team has former Wingate coach Shelton Collier.
As mentioned, Dagenais left a highly successful program at UCF for Atlanta.
CONTRACTS INKED: Atlanta may not have a name, but it has the most players signed12, in all. The list includes names NCAA fans will know well, including Grace Cleveland of Purdue, Tori Dilfer String of Louisville, Leah Edmond of Kentucky, Marlie Monserez of Florida who finished on the beach for UCLA, Kentucky’s Alli Stumler-Linnehan, Shelly Staffford of Baylor, Stanford great and USA national-teamer Morgan Hentz, and Paulina Shemanova, who starred at Syracuse before finishing at Florida.
Columbus signed middle Jenna Rosenthal. She played at Marquette and has been on board with PVF since last year. The Fury also signed Puerto Ricans Raymariely Santos and Ivania Ortiz.
Grand Rapids’ roster includes Claire Chaussee of Louisville, Purde setter Ashley Evans, currently with the USA national team, and Washington’s Marin Grote.
The Omaha team signed former Wisconsin setter Sydney Hilley, former Penn State libero Kendall White, who is with the USA national team, Oregon star Brooke Nuneviller, who is also with the national team, and a couple of international stars, Olympian Bethania de la Cruz of the Dominican Republic and Bulgaria Hristina (Ruseva) Vuchkova.
The San Diego team signed former Oregon setter August Raskie.
Click here for a complete PVF player list through signings of June 4.
INTERVIEWS: Our friends the Volleyball Master Coaches (Bob Bertucci, Mick Haley, Fran Flory and Bill Walton) talked to PVF folks the past two weeks.
Watch their interview with league founder Dave Whinham here and this week’s edition with Omaha’s Collier here.
The post Pro Volleyball Federation: Orlando gets a coach, franchises signing players galore appeared first on Volleyballmag.com.