Bowling Green State University Athletics
Van De Walle to Coach 700th Match This Weekend
October 13, 2005 | Volleyball
Oct. 13, 2005
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - Head Coach Denise Van De Walle will coach match number 700 Saturday night in Anderson Arena when the Falcons take on Eastern Michigan at 7 PM. Her overall record is 407-291 (.583). BGSU will also compete against Central Michigan Friday night at 7 PM.
Coach Van De Walle is the winningest mentor in MAC history with her 407 victories, including 188 MAC wins which places her third all-time.
Since joining BGSU, Van De Walle has built a highly competitive program that ranks as one of the best in the MAC and the midwest, both on and off the court. Van De Walle has led the Brown and Orange to a winning season in 15 of the last 19 years, including 10 seasons of 20-plus wins and a 30-win campaign.
Van De Walle, whose tenure is the longest of any current head coach at BG, became just the third coach in the history of BGSU volleyball on June 30, 1983, having coached at the high school, college, national, and international levels.
Van De Walle recorded her 400th win earlier this season with a convincing win over Chicago State on September 9th. The Brown and Orange dominated the Cougars to secure the memorable win (30-20, 30-20, 30-7). In the fall of 2002, Van De Walle became the first-ever coach to amass 350 career wins at a MAC school, reaching that plateau in a win over Marshall.
In the classroom, Van De Walle's squads perennially have one of the top team cumulative grade-point averages in the conference and have had numerous regional Academic All-Americans. This past fall the volleyball team earned the top GPA among BG squads with a 3.76. Over the last eight years, the Falcons have graduated 28 players from the volleyball program. No fewer than 24 of those players had a cumulative GPA of 3.00 or better.
Van De Walle has been chosen by her peers as MAC "Coach of the Year" on four occasions, receiving outright honors in 1989 and 1986, while sharing the award in 1992 and 1987.
Van De Walle has also been successful in international competition, leading several volleyball squads to success over seas. However, her most recent international accomplishment was this past fall when she led the USA Women's National Sitting Volleyball Team to a bronze medal as an assistant coach in the 2004 Paralympic Games in Greece.
