COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Jan. 2, 2019) – USA Volleyball has hired Michelle Goodall to serve as assistant coach for the reigning Paralympic Games champion U.S. Women’s National Sitting Volleyball Team.
Goodall has served as team leader for the program since March 2016 when it won its first-ever Paralympic Games gold medal at the 2016 Rio Paralympics. As team leader, she was the dedicated liaison between staff and athletes, handled reservations, scheduling social events, inter-team communications, team representative to all international event technical meetings, arranging media interviews and autograph sessions as requested, etc. In addition to the 2016 Paralympic Games gold, Team USA earned silver at the 2018 World ParaVolley World Championships and gold at the 2017 Parapan Zonal Championship with Goodall serving as team leader.
“Michelle possesses all the abilities needed for a great assistant coach and is well suited for the role,” said Bill Hamiter, head coach for the U.S. Women’s National Sitting Volleyball Team. “She is also very familiar with the team due to her role as team leader for the squad since 2016. Michelle is very passionate about this team and I know she will do an outstanding job.”
“I am thrilled to accept the Women’s National Team assistant coach position and look forward to continuing our work together!” Goodall said. “This role is a new position with the team and I’m grateful for the consideration and the opportunity to serve in this capacity. I want to thank Bill Hamiter and USA Volleyball for extending this dream offer to continue working with this remarkable team in a broader role.”
Goodall transitions to her new role within the U.S. Women’s National Sitting Volleyball Team after being in the coaching profession for over two decades. She had served as girls volleyball coach at John F. Kennedy High School (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), the largest Class 5A volleyball program in Iowa. Goodall amassed an overall record of 477-273-9 record and led the Cougars to six state tournament appearances, including a run of four straight trips from 2008-2011. During that stretch, Kennedy advanced to the semifinals three times. Goodall encouraged athlete participation of all levels where her rosters routinely had over 100 participants in grades 9-12.
Goodall also held the role of director of membership development for the Iowa Region, one of 40 regional volleyball associations connected with USA Volleyball, from March 2007 to January 2018. During her time with the Iowa Region, Goodall was the region’s beach programming director, beach high performance coordinator, social media coordinator, outreach programming director including sitting volleyball and boys’ volleyball, education director and region SafeSport lead.
Goodall is a USA Volleyball Coaching Accreditation Program (CAP) Level III coach. She is a CAP cadre and Master IMPACT CAP instructor. She has held other leadership roles within USA Volleyball including its Paralympic Commission, Sport Development Commission, SafeSport Committee, Education Committee and Administrative Council. Goodall has also served terms as chair of both the USA Volleyball Beach Assembly Administrative Council and the USA Volleyball Beach Assembly Member Organization.
While Goodall has already played a key role with the U.S. Women’s National Sitting Volleyball Team as its team leader, she feels this new role will add to her dream job.
“My profession is coaching, so even though I believed I already had a dream job serving this team as its team leader, I thought this might be a remarkable opportunity to merge my worlds and to continue our work, in simply a slightly different role,” Goodall said. “This staff and team are simply remarkable–I feel blessed and will wholeheartedly and passionately serve them to the best of my abilities. I can’t wait to get down to work. We dream big but also aren’t afraid of working hard to reach those goals. I’m thrilled and so very grateful to be a part of this!”
Goodall was selected by the U.S. Department of State to serve as a U.S. Sports Envoy to run a volleyball clinic for the underprivileged and a series of coaching clinics in the Philippines in September 2015.
The U.S. Women’s Sitting Team, which has already qualified for the 2020 Paralympic Games, has a busy schedule this year. The U.S. will open its 2019 campaign by hosting Canada in an exhibition series held March 14-17 in conjunction with the Colorado Crossroads in Denver. Team USA will then host Canada and Russia in exhibition matches held May 23-26 at the USA Volleyball Open National Championships in Columbus, Ohio. The Americans will travel to Lima, Peru, to compete in the Parapan American Games held Aug. 23-28. The 2019 schedule concludes with the U.S. competing in the Super 6 held Nov. 9-18 in Japan.