Sue Gozansky

Sue retired in 2009 after 39 years as head volleyball coach at the University of California–Riverside, but she has not retired from the sport of volleyball. She continues to teach courses for USA Volleyball and internationally for the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) around the world. Sue is in her second year of being assistant coach of the Claremont High School Men’s Volleyball Team.

Sue took the UCR Highlander Women’s Team from competing in a small college division in the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), the NCAA Division II and in 2000 to the elite level of the Big West Conference in NCAA Division I. Gozansky won almost 700 games dating back to 1970. During that span, UCR won three National Championships (AIAW Small College 1977, NCAA DII in 1982, 1986) and had a NCAA-record streak of 20 straight playoff appearances. She has been voted Coach of the Year in the CCAA five times (1981, 1982, 1988, 1989, 1996). Gozansky also served as head coach for the UCR men’s volleyball team for five years.

Her national and international coaching history is equally impressive. She has coached at the Olympic Sports Festival as well as the USA Women’s “B” volleyball team consisting of players being considered for roster spots on the National Team and was men’s and women’s coach for the quadrennial Maccabiah Games (Jewish Olympics) in Israel in 1981, 1985, 1989 and 1993. Gozansky is USAV CAP Level III coach and a member of the USA Volleyball Coaching Accreditation Program (CAP) teaching Cadre since 1988. She has also been a Level II certified instructor for the Federation International de Volleyball (FIVB) since 1993.

She coached the men’s team in Somalia and the men’s and women’s national teams of the Kingdom of Tonga in preparation for the Mini South Pacific Games in the summer of 1997, under the auspices of the FIVB. She has given over 100 clinics in more than 35 countries, including Germany, Spain, Switzerland, China, the island of Dominica, the Dominican Republic, St Kitts, St Vincent’s and the Grenadines, Nepal and Belize.

Gozansky has written two books, “Championship Volleyball Techniques” and “Drills and Volleyball Coach’s Survival Guide,” which was adopted as the USAV CAP Level II course textbook.

Despite attending Ganesha High School in Pomona in an era where there were no organized sports for women, Gozansky became an accomplished student-athlete at Cal Poly Pomona, earning Athlete of the Year honors after lettering in volleyball, basketball, badminton, softball, tennis and track. She also excelled in the classroom, receiving a degree in physical education/social sciences in 1968. In 1970 she played on the USA National Volleyball team, and she continued to compete on the varsity volleyball and basketball teams at UCLA while pursuing her master’s degree in kinesiology, which she earned in 1975. In 1981, Gozansky was honored with the Cal Poly Outstanding Alumnus Award, and in 1986 she was again honored with her induction into the inaugural class of the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

She joined the UCR staff in 1970 as head tennis and volleyball coach. During the early years of women’s sports, Gozansky served as the primary representative for women’s athletics at UCR and represented the Highlanders at the first Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) delegate assembly in 1971. When women’s sports became a part of the NCAA in 1981, she served on the first women’s volleyball committee. In 1990, she was recognized by the NCAA for 10 years of accomplishments and dedication to Division II volleyball. In 2006 she was inducted into the AVCA Coaches’ Hall of Fame and in the University of California–Riverside Athletics Hall of Fame in 2011.