Speraw on UCLA’s NCAA men’s volleyball title, USA’s busy summer ahead

John Speraw has a few days off, a rare time for the coach who is transitioning from his job at UCLA to the USA national team.

UCLA just won the NCAA men’s title and now Speraw goes to Anaheim, where the USA will prepare for Volleyball Nations League and a busy summer.

In this Zoom video interview, Speraw recaps that UCLA victory and looks ahead to the 15 months before the 2024 Paris Olympics. We also have the 30-man USA VNL roster and schedule below:

The 30-player roster provided by USA Volleball
No. Player (Position, Height, Hometown, College)
1. Matt Anderson (Opp, 6-10, West Seneca, N.Y., Penn State)
2. Aaron Russell (OH, 6-9, Ellicott City, Md., Penn State)
3. James Shaw (S, 6-8, Woodside, Calif. Stanford)
4. Jeff Jendryk (MB, 6-10, Wheaton, Ill., Loyola Chicago)
5. Kyle Ensing (Opp, 6-7, Valencia, Calif., Long Beach State)
6. Quinn Isaacson (S, 6-2, Plainfield, Ill., Ball State)
7. Jacob Pasteur (OH, 6-4, Westminster, Md., Ohio State)
8. TJ DeFalco (OH, 6-5, Huntington Beach, Calif., Long Beach State)
9. Jake Hanes (OPP, 6-10, Orland Park, Ill., Ohio State)
10. Kyle Dagostino (L, 5-9, Tampa, Florida, Stanford)
11. Micah Christenson (S, 6-5, Honolulu, Hawai’i, USC)
12. Max Holt (MB, 6-10, Cincinnati, Ohio, Penn State)
13. Patrick Gasman (MB, 6-10, Clovis, Calif., Hawai’i)
14. Micah Ma’a (S, 6-3, Kaneohe, Hawai’i)
15. Kyle Russell (Opp, 6-9, Loomis, Calif., UC Irvine)
16. Josh Tuaniga (S, 6-3, Long Beach, Calif., Long Beach State)
17. Thomas Jaeschke (OH, 6-6, Wheaton, Ill., Loyola Chicago)
18. Garrett Muagututia (OH, 6-5, Oceanside, Calif., UCLA)
19. Taylor Averill (MB, 6-7, San Jose, Calif., Hawai’i)
20. David Smith (MB, 6-7, Saugus, Calif., UC Irvine)
21. Mason Briggs (L, 6-0, Long Beach, Calif., Long Beach State)
22. Erik Shoji (L, 6-0, Honolulu, Hawai’i, Stanford)
23. Cody Kessel (OH, 6-5, Colorado Springs, Colo., Princeton)
24. Brett Wildman (OH, 6-5, Virginia Beach, Va., Penn State)
25. Ethan Champlin (OH, 6-3, Oceanside, Calif., UCLA)
26. Merrick McHenry (MB, 6-7, Bedford, Texas, UCLA,
27. Tyler Mitchem (MB, 6-11, Bolingbrook, Ill., Lewis)
28. Francesco Sani  (Opp, 6-8, Bethesda, Md., UC Irvine)
29. Jordan Ewert (OH, 6-5, Antioch, Calif., Stanford)
30. Kyle McCauley (OH, 6-4, Huntington Beach, Calif., UC San Diego)

Head Coach: John Speraw
Assistant Coaches: Matt Fuerbringer, Javier Weber
Second Assistant Coaches: Erik Sullivan, Mike Wall
Performance Analyst and Technical Coordinator: Nate Ngo
Athletic Trainer: Aaron Brock
Strength and Conditioning Coach: Tim Pelot
Team Manager: David Dantes
Sports Psychologist: Andrea Becker
Team Doctors: Andrew Gregory, Christopher Lee, Jeremiah Ray, Michael Shepard, Steven Stovitz, James Suchy, Eugene Yim

USA VNL schedule
at Ottawa, Canada
June 7 vs. Netherlands
June 8 vs. Italy
June 10 vs. Canada
June 11 vs. Brazil
at Rotterdam, Netherlands
June 20 vs. Serbia
June 21 vs. China
June 23 vs. Iran
June 24 vs. Poland
at Anaheim, CA
July 5 vs Cuba
July 7 vs. Argentina
July 8 vs. France
July 9 vs. Bulgaria
Finals
July 19-23, Gdansk, Poland

Lee Feinswog

Lee Feinswog is the publisher and editor of VolleyballMag.com
Contact him at Lee@VolleyballMag.com