GMS Staff
FOUNDING MEMBERS
CARL MCGOWN, Ph.D.
One of the three cofounders of GMS.
Carl has more than 40 years of International coaching experience. He first coached as an assistant for the USA in the 1970 World Championships in Bulgaria. Later he was the head coach of the USA Men's National Team from 1973 to 1976. Since then he has coached in six World Championships and seven Olympics (Los Angeles, Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, Athens, and Beijing).
From 1990 to 2002 he was the Men's Head Coach at BYU, where his teams won NCAA championships in 1999 and 2001. His most recent head coaching experience was in the 2007-08 Swiss A League, where he led LUC to the regular season title, the Coupe Suisse Championship, and the Swiss League Championship. In 2011 and 2012 he was the head coach of the Swiss National Men’s team.
In 2000, he was presented with the USA Volleyball All-Time Great Volleyball Coach Award. He is a member of the Utah Athletic Hall of Fame (2002), the AVCA Hall of Fame (2010) and the BYU Athletic Hall of Fame (2011).
He now consults with programs around the world: National Teams, Foreign Professional Leagues, D1-DIII College Programs, and Club/HS teams, and is a member of the FIVB Coaching Commission
DOUG BEAL, Ph.D.
One of the three cofounders of GMS.
Doug has endured success throughout his volleyball career as a player, coach and now administrator. It's safe to say that any success the U.S. Men’s National Volleyball Team has enjoyed during this era has Beal's fingerprints all over it.
Beal was the driving force behind the U.S. Men’s National Volleyball Team’s rise from mediocrity to the top of the volleyball world. In 1984 he guided a program that had not taken part in the Olympic Games since 1968 to a gold medal at the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles and opened the door to a decade of dominance by the United States.
Beal was also an integral part in the development of a year-round training center as both a coach and administrator. He was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame in 1989 and was USA Volleyball's first recipient of the All-Time Great Volleyball Coach Award in 1995. In 1999 he was a finalist for the FIVB Greatest Coach of the Century Award. In 1988, Beal's 1984 gold-medal winning Olympic Team was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame "Court of Honor." The 1984-88 squads also received special recognition in the FIVB Best Men's Team of the 20th Century category in December 2000. Beal finished his third tour as head coach of the men's team (1977-78; 1981-85; 1997-2004), completing his career as a coach in the 2004 Olympics (his third Olympic Games). Beal seamlessly transitioned into a full-time administrator after the 2004 Olympics, taking over as the CEO of USA Volleyball and its nearly 70 employees. He has been largely responsible for significant and steady membership growth while expanding programming at all levels.
MARV DUNPHY, Ed.D.
One of the three co-founders of GMS Marv Dunphy had a relatively short tenure as head coach of the USA men's national volleyball team (1985-88), but his accomplishments will last a lifetime. His teams won the gold medal at nearly every international tournament, including the 1985 World Cup, the 1986 World Championships, the 1987 Pan American Games and the 1988 Olympics. Dunphy also guided the United States to gold (1985) and silver (1987) medals at the NORCECA Continental Championships. He has directed Pepperdine to four NCAA men's volleyball championships during his 20 seasons as the Waves' head coach (1978, 1985, 1992, and 2005). Dunphy was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame in 1994. In 1999, he was presented with the USA Volleyball All-Time Great Volleyball Coach Award in the Contemporary Division. Most recently Marv was on staff with the 2008 USA Men's team that won the Gold Medal in Beijing.
ADVISORY STAFF
CHRIS MCGOWN
2013 MPSF AND AVCA COACH OF THE YEAR!!
http://byucougars.com/m-volleyball/mcgown-named-avca-coach-year
Chris McGown just completed his second year as the head coach of the BYU Men's Volleyball program. The 2013 team was ranked #1 in the country for the better part of the season, eventually winning the MPSF Conference Tournament. BYU went in to the final four as the #1 seed. In the semi finals BYU swept Penn State, but were upset by Irvine in the National Championship match. Chris was named both 2013 MPSF and AVCA Coach of the Year.
Chris took a break from coaching and playing immediately after college to work as a manufacturing engineer and worked closely with companies such as IBM, Boeing, General Electric, General Motors, Merck, and the Department of Defense. His experience as an engineer served him well as background for implementing the science behind the GMS systems. Chris left engineering full time in 2003 to work exclusively with Gold Medal Squared.
As a player, he was a three-year letterman at BYU from 1990-1994. He experienced the ups and downs of playing for his father, Carl McGown, and lived with the team through its early growing pains to one of the more dominant programs in men's collegiate volleyball. He still maintains close ties to the BYU men's program, and is the Volunteer Assistant for the women.
Chris is the principal clinician for Club Coaching events at GMS, and has spent countless hours with his father at our summer clinics. He also has a significant part in the administration of GMS, managing finances, the GMS website, clinic scheduling and staffing, and marketing/advertising. He continues to work with athletes at Clubs and High Schools, and loves to be on the court. When not involved in volleyball, he can be found skiing, golfing, mountain biking, and chasing after his two beautiful daughters.
JIM MCLAUGHLIN
Jim just completed his 12th year as head coach of the University of Washington women’s volleyball team and has helped catapult it from the bottom of the Pac-12 Conference to a perennial top-10 program and national championship contender. After inheriting a program that finished last in the conference standings in 2000, McLaughlin has taken the Huskies to the NCAA tournament in 11 consecutive seasons, leading UW to the 2005 National Championship. The 2012 Huskies reached the Sweet 16 for the seventh time in the past 10 years. He has coached teams to 17 appearances in the NCAA postseason, including four with Kansas State, which advanced to the Sweet 16 in 2000. He also spent seven seasons as the men's head coach at USC, where he won a national championship in 1990 and finished as runner-up a year later. McLaughlin is the only coach to win an NCAA title in both men’s and women’s volleyball. The Malibu, Calif., native also has had experience coaching on the international level as a three-time head coach at the World University Games (1991, 1993, 1995), in addition to being the head coach of the 1991 Pan Am team and a consultant for the men's U.S. Olympic teams in 1992 and 1996
RON LARSEN
Ron Larsen is in his first season with the LMU volleyball program after being hired in February of 2013. A two-time U.S. Olympic Team assistant coach, Larsen recently completed his 17th year as an NCAA head coach in 2012, including his fourth at UC Riverside.
Larsen, an assistant for the U.S. Men's Team in 2012, became a household name when he took over for Head Coach Hugh McCutcheon at the 2008 Olympic Games, coaching the U.S. Men's Team in their first three contests. 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.
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 his four seasons at UC Riverside, Larsen coached nine All-Big West Conference performers, and the 2011 squad tied the program's Division I record for most wins in league play.
Larsen, the 2004 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) Coach of the Year, completed six seasons as the UCSD head coach prior to heading to the U.S. National Team. 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 as UCSD competed as the only Division II team and the only non-scholarship program in the nation's toughest men's volleyball conference.
The 2004 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 after seven seasons at the University of Rutgers-Newark where he was the head coach of both the men's and women's programs.
Larsen began his coaching career 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 UC 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 103-88 in men's volleyball and 122-96 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 1995 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.
ROB BROWNING
Rob Browning enters his eighth season as the head women's volleyball coach at Saint Mary's in 2012. Under Browning’s direction the volleyball program has experienced unprecedented success (see below).
In addition to three NCAA tournament appearances, in 2009 the Gaels won their first-ever WCC Championship. Saint Mary’s dominated the WCC, leading the conference in every statistical category. SMC was tops in hitting percentage (.296), opponents hitting percentage (.174), assists per set (13.77), digs per set (15.55), kills per set (14.72), blocks per set (2.76), and service aces per set (1.40).
Browning was hired as the eighth head women's volleyball coach in the program's 28-year history on March 23, 2005.
He was an assistant coach for the USA Men's National Team for six years prior to joining Saint Mary's. He has been to three Olympic Games with the USA men's team: 2000 in Sydney, 2004 in Athens, and 2008 in Beijing where the team won the gold medal. He recently coached the USA Women’s Junior National Team to the NORCECA Championship in 2010 and to a 4th place finish at the Junior World Championships in Peru in 2011.
Prior to coaching the men's national team, Browning served as a volunteer assistant on the BYU men's volleyball team for three years, culminating in BYU's first NCAA National Championship in 1999.
A native of Newport Beach, CA, Browning earned his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Spanish Translation with a Minor in International Relations from BYU in 1990. He played volleyball at BYU from 1987 to 1989. Browning graduated from Corona del Mar High School in Newport Beach, where he lettered in volleyball for two years and was named a 1984 Orange County All-Star.
Browning is married to Michelle Perez, since July, 1989. They have two children, Madison (15) and John (9).
JOHN SPERAW
John Speraw, who guided UC Irvine to the 2012 NCAA men's volleyball championship in a three-set victory over USC, was named UCLA's head coach, Athletic Director Dan Guerrero announced on June 5.
Speraw served 10 seasons as UC Irvine's coach and transformed the program into a national power. Under his direction, the Anteaters won three NCAA titles in the last six years and advanced to the NCAA Championship four times, won two MPSF regular season titles and a pair of MPSF Tournament championships.
"We are excited to welcome John Speraw back to Westwood to take the reins of the men's volleyball program," Guerrero said. "After winning three national titles as a head coach at UC Irvine and two as a player at UCLA, he certainly knows what it takes to win at the highest level. In addition, as a former Bruin assistant coach and student-athlete, he knows first-hand the values and ideals we hold near and dear as an athletic department and as an institution."
Speraw, 40, assumes the duties of his collegiate mentor, Al Scates, who retired after 50 years as the Bruins' head coach on June 30, 2012
"I'm confident that John Speraw is the right man to lead UCLA men's volleyball into the next era," said Scates. "He has proven himself to be an outstanding coach both collegiately and internationally. UCLA is privileged to have him."
Speraw has also been successful on the international level, serving as an assistant coach with the United States Men's Indoor Volleyball Team that won the gold medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. In 2011, he was given the U.S. Olympic Achievement Award, an honor that recognizes the colleges and universities whose coaches and student-athletes have won Olympic medals in the past two Olympiads.
In May, the U.S. qualified for the 2012 Games in London, and Speraw will serve as assistant coach once again.
"It is a great honor to be asked to lead one of the greatest programs in NCAA sports history." said Speraw. "Al Scates is a great friend and mentor. I hope to continue his legacy of producing great championship teams.
CAMP/CLINIC STAFF
TOM BLACK
Tom Black enters his second season as LMU's head coach after being hired on January 19th, 2010. In his inaugural season, Black guided his 2010 roster of Lions to an even 15-15 mark and a fourth-place finish in the West Coast Conference after being selected to finish eighth in the 2010 preseason coaches' poll. Black saw two of his athletes garner All-Conference recognition at the conclusion of the season as Jasmine Rankins took home first team honors and Alyse Hensley earned an honorable mention nod and a spot on the All-Freshman team.
Including a 115-29 record at Division II UC San Diego, Black has accumulated a 130-44 record as a head coach in women's volleyball. The .747 winning percentage is the third-best mark in the NCAA amongst active head coaches with a minimum of five years as a four-year college head coach, but with fewer than five years at the Division I level.
Most recently, Black spent the summer of 2011 as a consultant coach for the US National Team as it prepares for the 2012 London Games. The summer stint with the National Team was Black's second in as many years. Under his title, Black primarily assisted in the training sessions at the American Sports Center as the US National Team readied itself to compete in the Montreux Volley Masters event held from June 7-12 in Montreux, Switzerland. The US finished Pool Play with a 2-1 record and advanced to the bronze-medal match before falling to China in four sets.
Tom will be an integral part of our coaching clinics, along with a contributing member for our coaches toolbox.
JASON WATSON
Jason Watson has completed his fifth season at the helm of the ASU Women's Volleyball Program. During the 2012 season, the Sun Devils knocked off #6 USC, and #5 Washington, earning them a birth in the NCAA Tournament.
After a 2009 season that saw the Sun Devil squad progress to becoming a threat in the Pac-10 and nation. The 2009 Sun Devils opened with an 11-3 record, the best start in program history since 1992 when the Sun Devils advanced to a program-best Sweet Sixteen appearance. The team continued to improve in leaps and bounds, finishing ranked third in the Pac-10 in blocks per set and 13th in the NCAA overall. Watson's recruiting classes are also of note, where the 2010 class was top-25 and 2011 looks to be of a similar cut. Watson's tireless efforts have begun to bring success back to the Maroon & Gold program and promises a bright future.
Watson traveled to Tempe after three stellar seasons as Head Coach of the Brigham Young University women's volleyball program, where he compiled a 74-18 (.804) overall record while leading BYU to three straight NCAA Tournament appearances. In only his first season as Head Coach, he was named the Mountain West Conference Coach of the Year after leading his team to a 25-4 record, the program's best record since 1998. In addition to leading BYU to the MWC regular-season title, Watson also helped lead them back to the NCAA Tournament as well, where his teams have resided and succeeded in the last few years.
In 2007, he led the Cougars to a 24-8 overall record and finish in NCAA Regional Final (Elite 8) as well as a final national ranking of 12th and at one point in the season as high a rank as ninth. No stranger to the best competition, Watson's teams have been ranked as high as eighth on RPI, showing the character and strength of the teams he builds and that they shy away from no challenge.
Prior to his head-coaching debut at BYU in 2005, Watson had amassed 11 years as an assistant coach at four universities. After an All-American playing career at BYU from 1990-1994, where he was a four-year starter and two-time captain, Watson coached for two years under his former coach, Carl McGown before beginning his career in women's volleyball with extremely successful stints at Kansas State, Arkansas State and Montana State.
MIKE WALL
Currently Mike is an assistant coach for the Arizona State Women's Volleyball Team. Mike has also been an integral part of Gold Medal Squared since 2003, running the summer camp program, and developing/managing the volleyball toolbox.
From 2006-2008 Mike served as the first assistant coach for Arizona State University Women’s Volleyball. In his first nine months with ASU Mike helped the Sun Devils go from an RPI ranking of 152 in 2005 to a ranking of 25 in 2006. Mike also helped the Sun Devils back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 4 years, advancing to the second round.
In 2005 Mike served as the first assistant coach at the University of Utah. The Utes won the MWC Tournament, and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Before Utah, Mike was coaching at Saint Mary's College. While on the Gaels' staff, Wall helped the team to a 24-4 overall record. The Gaels beat the eventual national champions Stanford twice during the regular season and even went as far as the Sweet 16 before losing to Washington. SMC started the season ranked out of the top 50 and finished ranked No. 10 in the country. Prior to his stint at Saint Mary's, Wall was an assistant coach at UC-San Diego in 2003-04. There he helped UCSD to its best season in program history.
Mike gained valuable experience playing volleyball at the international level as well. His international exploits began during the 2001 season when he participated in the World League Tournament with the USA National Team. After finishing his senior campaign at Brigham Young, Wall returned to the US National Team to take part in the Dallas and Italian tours. From 2002-04, Wall played volleyball overseas. He began playing in the Swiss National League A in 2002-03 and spent part of 2004 playing for San Sebastian Volleyball Club in Puerto Rico.
Wall played college volleyball at Brigham Young from 1997-2002 and was a part of two National Championship squads. In 2001, Wall was named a first team All-American. After beating UCLA in three games to take the NCAA Title, Wall was named the Final Four MVP. In 2002, Wall was again named a first team All-American and also was named BYU's Most Competitive Athlete. Currently, Wall holds eight records at BYU