A NEW LEADER FOR A NEW ERA: JOSE LOIOLA
A hall of fame athlete and accomplished coach at both the professional and collegiate levels, Jose Loiola (JO-say Loy-OLA) was named the University of South Carolina’s second head beach volleyball coach on May 23, 2025. Loiola most recently served for two seasons as assistant coach for the UCLA Bruins and coached professional teams on both the men’s and women’s side, dating back to 2014.
COACHING HIGHLIGHTS
- In May 2025, Loiola was recognized as the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Collegiate Beach Assistant Coach of the Year after UCLA went 30-6 in the regular season and earned the top seed in the NCAA tournament, advancing to the national semifinal.
- In his two earlier seasons on the UCLA (2021 and 2024) the Bruins were national runners-up.
- Individually, UCLA had four players earn AVCA All-American honors and in the fall, Loiola coached the team’s duo of Maggie Boyd and Sally Perez to a title in the AVCA Beach Pairs National Championship.
- Between his two stints at UCLA, Loiola worked as head coach of USA Volleyball’s National Team Development Program from May 2021 to June 2023. He had previously spent four years (2015-18) leading USA Volleyball Beach High Performance tryouts.
- Loiola began his career coaching professionals in 2014, working with Casey Jennings and Jeremy Casebeer. He worked with three different teams in 2015, highlighted by Theo Brunner and Nick Lucena finishing fourth at the FIVB World Championship. Also in 2015, he coached the tandem of Irene Pollock and Caitlin Ledoux. In 2017, Loiola coached Sara Hughes and Kelley Claes to an Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) victory in Chicago. He also coached Hughes and Summer Ross from 2018-19, as the duo won two AVP tour events and went on to win gold in Russia on the FIVB circuit.
- Between his work on the AVP and FIVB circuits and the national team program, Loiola has also worked with Andy Benesh and Miles Partain (2024 Paris Olympians), Tri Bourne (2020 Tokyo Olympian), Reid Priddy (2008 Beijing and 2016 Rio Olympian) and Trevor Crabb on the men’s side, and Katie Horton, Julia Scoles, Emily Day and Jen Kessy on the women’s side.
PROS KNOW: WHAT THEY'RE SAYING ABOUT JOSE LOIOLA
PLAYING HIGHLIGHTS
- As a player, Loiola reached the highest level of the sport, representing Brazil at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney with teammate Emanuel Rego and finishing ninth.
- In the professional beach volleyball scene, Loiola recorded 55 event titles over a career that spanned two decades: 35 coming from the AVP national circuit and 20 more internationally with FIVB.
- Among those wins were the 1997 King of the Beach, the 1999 FIVB World Championship in Marseille, France, the 2001 Goodwill Games Australia and two Manhattan Beach Open titles (1995 and 2000).
- Loiola was the first international player to be selected AVP Rookie of the Year (1993) and then MVP (1997). His first title, an indoor tournament in 1995, marked the first time an AVP event was won by two foreign-born players, as he claimed the title with Eduardo Bacil.
- He won four AVP Offensive Player of the Year awards (1995-98) and, in 2001, the FIVB chose Loiola and Rego as one of the two best teams of the 1990s.
- Loiola was inducted into the California Beach Volleyball Association’s Hall of Fame in 2014 and the International Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2017.
WELCOME TO WHEELER BEACH
- Wheeler Beach opened for the beach volleyball program’s inaugural season in 2014. It is located between Carolina Softball Stadium and Carolina Tennis Center. The facility was dedicated at the team’s home opener against Oregon on March 21, 2014, a dual that the Gamecocks went on to win, 4-1.
- The complex was the first collegiate beach volleyball facility of its kind and the first ever in the SEC. It features five courts with lights and electronic scoreboards on each court, the first collegiate beach volleyball facility to have this feature. At the end of the complex is a master scoreboard that keeps fans informed with the latest scores on each of the five courts and the overall dual.
- It’s the first electronic scoreboard specifically for beach volleyball in the world. Palmetto trees have been placed throughout the facility, and fans can bring lawn chairs and blankets to sit on the turf and enjoy the matches. The facility also features a sound system which has music playing throughout the duals.
- The program named its facility Wheeler Beach in honor of the generosity of Jon and Kim Wheeler. The relationship began thanks in part to the on-court contributions of Paige Wheeler, who started her Gamecock career with the indoor volleyball program and moved to the beach in its first season of existence in 2014. A wrought-iron gate spanning the entrances to Wheeler Beach now bears the family’s name.
The beach program has one of the newest locker rooms at South Carolina and it includes a separate team area for video review and other amenities for entertainment.
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SUCCESS IN THE CLASSROOM
Since the program's inception, South Carolina beach volleyball has racked up the academic honors...
- In the 2018-19 and 2019-20 academic years, the beach team led the entire South Carolina athletics department for highest semester GPA. In the fall of the 2018, the Gamecocks led with a 3.616 GPA. The team repeated that feat in the following fall, upping its combined GPA to 3.76, and then shattered that with a program record GPA of 3.947 in the spring of 2020.
- The squad returned to the top of the list for the 2022 fall semester, leading all Gamecock teams with a 3.72 GPA.
- The Gamecocks are one of just three beach programs in the country to earn the AVCA Team Academic Award for 10 consecutive seasons.
SUCCESS OFF THE SAND
In 2019, senior Shannon Williams earned the coveted President's Award, given to one South Carolina student-athlete who achieved success in all three phases: academics, athletics and community outreach. She is the first member in program history to receive the honor.
In 2024, Skylar Allen was the unanimous winner of the CCSA Scholar-Athlete of the Year, as voted on by the conference's coaches. After graduating with a degree in exercise science in May of 2023, Allen then moved into a PhD program in coaching science and carried a 4.0 GPA.