Volleyball coach leaves big shoes to fill
By Justin Feil
Princeton University is bidding good-bye to another standout coach, one who flew a bit under the radar though his teams were always at or near the top.
Glenn Nelson, coach of the Tiger men’s and women’s volleyball teams for a total of 58 seasons, will make this men’s season his last. Nelson became men’s coach in 1979. He took over the women’s team in 1982.
The Tiger men have seven games left in the regular season which finishes Apr. 17 at George Mason. They play at Penn State tonight.
”Glenn is one of the all-time greatest coaches in the history of Princeton University,” said Princeton athletics director Gary Walters in a statement released Thursday. “He is the face of Princeton volleyball, and it’s hard to imagine looking on the bench in the future and not seeing him there.”
It’s as monumental as when Hall of Fame basketball coach Pete Carril — a good friend of Nelson’s — stepped down, except that Nelson has been excelling at Dillon Gym for all these years and not in the limelight of Jadwin Gym.
Carril’s teams played before thousands. Nelson’s team climbed back to .500 at 7-7 with a 3-0 win over Harvard before a listed crowd of 75 at Dillon. It doesn’t mean that Nelson’s teams are any less successful. They compare really favorably, in fact.
Some might argue that it stands to reason that Nelson is the winningest coach in Princeton University history. After all, he coaches two teams every year. But his 579 victories with the PU women’s team are more than any other Tigers coach has with one team. Former Tigers softball coach Cindy Cohen had 559 wins for the Orange and Black, but she’s a distant second now.
Add it together with his men’s team successes and Nelson’s winning total is 1,106 victories — and counting. His teams have combined for 28 Ivy League championships (17 on the men’s side, 11 on the women’s). In 2004, his women’s team became the first to put together a perfect 14-0 Ivy season.
He’s not one to talk about his accomplishments, and that’s a good thing because he has an extensive list. He is among the top 25 winningest coaches in NCAA women’s volleyball history. His teams have averaged more than 21 wins per year. In 22 seasons, they had just one losing record. He has coached four Ivy Players of the Year and another five Ivy Rookies of the Year.
In 1997-98, Nelson did something no other college volleyball coach past or since has accomplished. Both the men’s and women’s teams reached the NCAA final four.
Nelson leaves huge shoes to fill. It may take more than one person. The University’s announcement on his retirement did not include the usual note that Princeton will conduct a “national search for his successor.” He may need “successors” unless the Tigers can find someone who wants to coach both the men’s and women’s teams, and it would be difficult to invoke the same passion and energy that Nelson put into it. It eventually has worn Nelson down.
”Maybe I’m leaving a little earlier than people might have expected, but people have to understand that I’ve coached 58 different teams, so I’m never really out of season,” he said. “It’s harder than handling just one team or one sport. From the time I was 28 until I was 52, I played with the teams every day at practice, so maybe I’m a little older than my chronological age.”
Nelson will leave with his place in Princeton history firmly entrenched at the top of any coaching list. Whether he has a court named in his honor remains to be seen, but it’s doubtful he will be challenged for a long time.
When you look at the Tigers athletic staff, there are potential candidates — men’s basketball coach Sydney Johnson, women’s basketball coach Courtney Banghart and softball coach Trina Salcido are young enough and their teams play enough games that they’d have a chance to catch Nelson. . . if they could win as much as he did and if they don’t leave after they do start to win.
Established coaches like men’s lacrosse coach Bill Tierney and women’s lacrosse coach Chris Sailer, as well as soccer coaches Jim Barlow and Julie Shackford, have enjoyed success, but they don’t have enough games per season to have a chance.
The best chance to upend Nelson may rest with Scott Bradley. PU’s baseball coach took less than 10 seasons to reach 200 wins, and could have a shot at it. With 248 career victories to his name, Bradley sits within striking distance of Nelson’s mark.
All that’s left is averaging more than 20 wins per season for another 17 seasons. Bradley would be 66 by then.
Glenn Nelson may be leaving Princeton University, but his mark on the Tigers isn’t going anywhere.

