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The Conference Carolinas will add another men’s volleyball team for the 2013 season.
Coker College announced Monday that it would add men’s volleyball as an intercollegiate sport that will compete in the Conference Carolinas beginning in the 2012-13 school year.
“As an emerging sport in Conference Carolinas and across the country, men’s volleyball is an excellent fit for Coker,” Coker College President Robert Wyatt said in statement.
Coker, located in Hartsville, S.C., was already a member of the Conference Carolinas for the school’s 14 other intercollegiate sports.
The Conference Carolinas is a Division II conference and in 2009 became the first multi-sport conference to sponsor men’s volleyball. The conference will become eligible for an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament starting in 2004.
Coker will be the eighth men’s volleyball team to join the conference and is the third school in the conference during the last two years to announce it would form a team.
Barton College is entering its inaugural season and is the Conference Carolinas’ sixth men’s volleyball member — the minimum needed for a conference to receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. In addition, Erskine College announced in August that it would form a team for the 2013 season.
Along with announcing the formation of a men’s volleyball team, Coker on Monday named Todd Caughlin as the team’s head coach.
Caughlin is the current head coach of the Coker women’s volleyball team. Prior to arriving at Coker in 2010, Caughlin spent nine years as the head coach of the St. Mary’s University women’s volleyball team and helped guide the team to four consecutive top 10 finishes in the Southwest Regional Ranking.
“I am honored for the opportunity to coach the first men’s volleyball team in Coker history,” Caughlin said in a statement released Monday. “I am especially eager to get out on the recruiting trail and start building a competitive program both on the court and in the classroom.”
The coach also said in the statement he intends to recruit players from across the nation. Caughlin, a native Canadian, said he would focus his recruiting in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Texas and Canada.