Johnson City, TN — The college volleyball season is still months away, but this year there will be a new coach roaming the sidelines for the ETSU Buccaneers.

Last month, athletic director Dr. Richard Sander announced the hiring of Dr. Bruce Atkinson as ETSU’s new volleyball head coach.

Atkinson comes to ETSU with 20 years of head coaching experience at both the NCAA Division I and Division II levels. While he’s found success in rebounding those programs, he will not have to do that at ETSU, where the women are coming off a 21-8 and 15-1 record in the conference.

“I need to get to know them first off. But, you know, obviously, they’ve had tremendous success,” he said. “And so it’s nice. A lot of the places that I’ve been previously were well for, I guess, lack of better words, rebuilds or total rebuilds. And that’s not the case here. You know, there’s a lot of talent that’s already here.”

“We obviously need to add in a couple of people who contribute, but we’re in a great position to hopefully be very successful you know, starting this upcoming season. And so a lot of us just getting to know each other and, you know, developing whatever offense and defensive schemes will work best for the personnel that we have at this time.”