Cincinnati State Names Coach For New Women's Volleyball Program

By Robert White/Cincinnati State Sports Information

Cincinnati, OH---Cincinnati State has named Kristy Bailey to be the head coach of its new women's volleyball program. 

Bailey will draw upon her experience as a player and a coach to launch women's volleyball at Cincinnati State.  She has the challenge of assembling a program that will begin competition this August when the 2013 season opens.  

"Kristy has the qualities we need to launch this program," said Cincinnati State athletic director Tom Hathaway. "She already has experience in building a team from scratch. She has played in high school and at one of the best community college programs in our region, and she has solid coaching experience." 

A native of Adrian, Mich., Bailey is a 2005 graduate of Lenawee Christian High School, where she was an All-County, All-Region and All-Michigan player in volleyball.

She earned an athletic scholarship at Owens Community College, which boasts one of the power programs in the National Junior College Athletic Association's Region XII. Owens has won the Ohio Community College Athletic Conference champion in 11 of the past 12 seasons. 

After playing for a year at Southeastern University (on a team that was the runner-up in the 2007 NCCAA national championship), Bailey transferred to Northern Kentucky University. There she organized a highly-competitive club volleyball program and served as the team's player-coach.

The experience gave her broad insight to the responsibilities of coaching and developing a team, Hathaway said, noting that she handled such duties as scheduling, player recruiting and development, practice and game preparation, and event management as well as fund-raising. 

While playing and coaching at NKU, Bailey also found time to serve as assistant volleyball coach at Cooper High School in Northern Kentucky and work as an assistant and clinician at the Northern Kentucky Junior Volleyball Club. 

Bailey completed her BA in integrated studies at NKU in 2012.  For the past year she has been head coach of the Midwest Xtreme Volleyball Club's U16 White team. 

Cincinnati State added volleyball to its intercollegiate program to help increase the college's visibility, Hathaway said, by tapping into the region's multitude of successful high school and club programs. Adding volleyball will not involve increasing the athletic department budget, he noted. Cincinnati State currently sponsors teams in men's basketball, women's basketball, men's soccer, women's soccer and golf. 

ABOUT CINCINNATI STATE

Cincinnati State (www.cincinnatistate.edu) offers more than 100 associate degree and certificate programs in business technologies, health and public safety, engineering technologies, humanities and sciences and information technologies. Cincinnati State has one of the largest cooperative education programs in the United States.