UC Riverside athletic director Brian Wickstrom announced that Michelle Patton will be the Highlanders new women’s volleyball coach. She was one of the last five in a pool of thirty that were being considered for the job in the two-month search.
“I am excited to welcome Michelle to the Highlanders family,” Wickstrom said in a statement released by the university.
“She has been a winner at every level — player, assistant and head coach. During the search, we spoke with a number of people in the volleyball community. Michelle is known as a tireless worker who can put the pieces together to win. I want to thank the search committee of Julie Hall, Eric Buskirk and Jason List for all of the hours they put in to complete a thorough search resulting in such an outstanding fit for UC Riverside.”
Patton brings proven success to the Riverside program that finished last year 8-24. She was a setter at University of Washington from 1994-97 and helped the Huskies to three NCAA appearances.
After she graduated, the new coach in 2001, Jim McLaughlin, asked her to come in and set the other side at practice.
“He convinced me to get into coaching and come on to that staff. He was really instrumental having me look at it (coaching) as a career path. I owe it to him for sure for keeping me in the sport with coaching,” Patton said.
She then served as an assistant coach at UW from 2002-‘04 and then moved on to be the recruiting coordinator at Wyoming from 2004-‘07.
Her first head-coaching job was at San Francisco State in 2008 taking on a program that had been disbanded for five years after going 20-126 in the previous five seasons. Patton finished her first season with a record of 13-15. In 2009, the program finished 20-11, earning an NCAA tournament bid.
The Gators continued suit the next two seasons finishing, 14-13 and 15-12. This past year they finished 21-9, including a 16-6 record in the CCAA, which was a school record for conference wins. The Gators were second place in the conference behind Cal State San Bernardino and earned a trip to the NCAA tournament.
“I got to start the program from scratch so I walked into an office that had a desk and that was it. They had stopped the program years earlier. It was a great experience for me because I got to kind of build it and have the opportunity to bring kids in and build a foundation and they really bought in. It was a good deal for me because it was my first head-coaching job in college but I got to have my personal touch on it. It really helped me grow as a head coach quickly. I really appreciate that,” Patton said.
Patton has her work cut out for her as Riverside has finished last in the Big West the past five seasons. Former head coach Ron Larsen resigned in December after being with the program for four years. The Highlanders only have one winning season in the last 11 years — 2005 (16-11) — since they moved up from Division II in 2001.
She remains optimistic that she can turn the program around with a region saturated with talent and is very interested in getting back to coaching at the Division I level.
“I thought it had a great conference, a great academic school and being part of the UC system, I knew the department was growing — a lot of growth and movement in terms of the right direction. I was definitely interested and knew this was a great area down here for recruiting. It made sense still being in California and had a lot of potential here,” Patton said.
She had the opportunity to meet the team this week and saw them practice yesterday and is pleased with what she has to work with.
“Being able to take a team who really does want to win, wants to figure it out and is dedicated and being able to take my experiences from being a player at the Division I level ... coaching and being able to steer and guide it to the best of my ability. Our goal is just improving and we definitely need to make some changes to start that process. We definitely have some room to improve and that’s promising to me,” Patton said.
Patton will start leading practice in the first week of February and looks forward to getting in the gym and establishing relationships with the players.
“The obvious main goal is to get better and to win more, to put ourselves in the position to compete and the wins will come. We have a good spring season ahead of us, so I think right now priority is me getting in and evaluating and adjusting where we need to spend our time in the gym and make as many improvements as we can before spring,” Patton said.
