ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.— Jon Newman-Gonchar, The University of New Mexico head volleyball coach, will be heading to Colorado Springs, Colo. at the beginning of March to be among a handful of college coaches that will oversee the USA Volleyball National Team Tryouts.
Held at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs from March 1-3, this prestigious event hosts over 200 of the best college athletes in the country looking to earn a spot on one of the national team programs.
Through the three days, participants will be vying for a spot on the U.S. Women’s National Team as well as a spot on one of the three Collegiate National Teams, depending on their level of eligibility.
This year, the collegiate national teams will have three separate teams competing in three different locations. One team will compete at the World University Games in Italy, one team will travel to Japan and one team will compete in Anaheim, Calif., over the summer.
Newman-Gonchar will work with U.S. Women’s National Team head coach Karch Kiraly as an assistant coach.
Upon Newman-Gonchar’s hire at UNM, Kiraly praised the new head coach, stating, “Congratulations University of New Mexico, what a great decision. Nobody cares more than Jon does about the whole person that is each unique student-athlete. His dedication to servant leadership, to teaching and to learning has certainly had a special impact on our USA Women, and I expect he’ll have that same impact on everyone in the UNM program, for both the short term and the long.”
His experience with USA Volleyball has been extensive, including a recent stint as head coach of the Team USA Pan American Cup team.
Most recently in 2018, the first-year UNM head coach was selected by Kiraly to serve as Head Coach of the 2018 Team USA Pan American Cup team, where the squad took gold in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
In 2017, Newman-Gonchar joined Team USA as a consultant coach for the FIVB World Grand Prix team that finished 5th in the world in Nanjng, China. Also, in the summer of 2017, the Pan American Cup team took Gold in Lima, Peru at the annual NORCECA event. Previously he served as assistant coach with the Pan American Cup team in 2015 in Lima, Peru and 2016 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where the U.S. won gold and bronze respectively.
He began his USA High Performance team experience in 2007, working with the USA Select A1 Girls Program. He moved up the USA Volleyball High Performance pipeline ranks from there, including working as a technical assistant with the U.S. Junior National Team in 2009 as they prepared for the NORCECA U20 Continental Championship and again in preparation for the team competing at the 2010 FIVB U20 World Championships.
Per the Team USA release, “the tryout will evaluate athletes from 87 colleges from across the country for spots on the U.S. Women’s National Team and the U.S. Collegiate National Team program. The breakdown for the tryout includes 56 outside hitters, 46 liberos, 44 setters, 42 middles and 30 opposites.
“The tryout will involve four sessions with three waves per session. Friday’s first session goes from 2-8 p.m. MT, while Saturday’s sessions are at 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. The final session on Sunday begins at 7:30 a.m. MT with tournament style play, along with 16-18 athletes selected by the U.S. Women’s National Team staff to participate in a “USA” training session. The Sunday session wraps up at 10:30 a.m. MT.
All sessions minus the USA training session on Sunday morning will be streamed live by clicking here. USA Volleyball will use #USAVtryout as the event hashtag for photos, notes, quotes and stories posted to its social media platforms Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram under the handle @usavolleyball.”
Newman-Gonchar was hired on Jan. 21 as the 10th head coach in the volleyball program and added assistant coach Jesse Tupac earlier this month for the first piece of his coaching staff.