Volleyball
- Title:
- Assistant Coach
Samantha Wolinski starts up her second season as an assistant coach with the Mississippi State volleyball team after a successful 14-year stint has head coach at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn.
A native of Lancaster, N.Y., Wolinksi is the winningest volleyball coach in Rhodes College history with 261 victories from 1999 to 2012. She had also recently assumed the additional role of assistant athletics director for the Lynx.
Wolinski coaches middles, coordinates recruiting and handles additional on-court and administrative duties with the Bulldog volleyball program. In her first season with the Maroon and White, the Bulldogs picked up several key victories, including the Bulldogs’ first win in Knoxville since 1995 and first back-to-back sweep of SEC opponents in program history, blanking Tennessee and South Carolina at home.
At Rhodes, Wolinski guided the Lynx volleyball team to seven 20-win campaigns, including a 29-12 finish that included a school-first appearance in the 2006 NCAA Division III Tournament. She earned Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honors in both 2004 and 2006 while two of her players earned honorable mention all-America team honors and joined three other Lynx players as all-region performers during her term at Rhodes College.
Wolinski’s teams also enjoyed success in the classroom, with her teams earning AVCA Team Academic Awards eight times.
She was a three-sport letter-winner and middle blocker in volleyball during her athletic career at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind. After graduation in 1996, Wolinski worked briefly for Americorps’ Athletes in Service to America program. She then embarked on a coaching career as the varsity volleyball coach at Holy Angels Academy in Buffalo, N.Y. Wolinski then served as an assistant coach for a season at her alma mater in Indiana before accepting the head coaching post at Rhodes College in 1999.
Wolinski, who was the Division III Women’s Representative for the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Board of Directors. She’s also actively involved with Memphis area youth volleyball programs, most recently serving as the director for the Memphis Juniors Volleyball Association (MJVA). In 2003 she was name the recipient of the Robert L. Lindsey Meritorious Service Award for her work with the Delta Region of USA Volleyball.
She received a Master’s Degree in Sport Administration from Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1999, is a 2006 graduate of the NCAA Women’s Coaches Academy and a 2010 graduate of the WCA’s Dimension II program.
