May 13, 2008
Fullerton, Calif. - The Cal State Fullerton volleyball team announced Tuesday that Vinh Nguyen has been hired as an assistant coach replacing Traci Dahl who vacated her spot to become head coach at Indiana State.
Nguyen comes to Fullerton with an extensive coaching resume that dates back more than 20 years. For the past 12 season, Nguyen, has been an assistant coach at Cal Poly Pomona where he helped Head Coach Rosie Wegrich lift the Broncos to six seasons with at least 18 wins and a program-best 24-3 mark in 2005. That same year, Pomona won its first California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) championship since 1990.
Nguyen was the Broncos summer camp director for the past nine years and taught as a kinesiology professor on campus as well.
In 2007, Nguyen was hired by the USA Men's National Team as an assistant coach to help the team prepare for its run at World League, Pan-Am Cup, Americas Cup and Norceca Cup championships, which resulted in two gold medals, a silver and a bronze.
Prior to his work at Cal Poly Pomona, Nguyen coached at five Southern California high schools (Hoover, San Gabriel, Arcadia, Alhambra and La Habra) and worked with the San Gabriel, Magnum and Power Volleyball Clubs.
In 1996, Nguyen co-founded the Top Gun Volleyball Club, one of Southern California's most respected youth volleyball programs which has trained more than 800 athletes since its inception.
In 2005, under the guidance of USA Volleyball, Nguyen was named head coach and led the Southern California Youth National Team to a sixth-place finish in the USA High Performance Championships in Austin, Texas. A year later, his Top Gun 18 Red club team won a gold medal at the USA Junior Olympic Invitational in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Nguyen played at Mt. San Antonio College and Long Beach City College before transferring into the Big West Conference with Long Beach State. He finished his schooling and graduated from Cal Poly Pomona in 2000 with a degree in kinesiology.
Information courtesy of Cal Poly Pomona's Athletic Media Relations office