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Head coach Joe Sagula enters his 29th season of coaching in 2009 as one of the most prolific winners in college volleyball today. The 2008 Tar Heels claimed the program's 11th Atlantic Coast Conference title with a thrilling three-game sweep of NC State on the final day of the season, sharing the title with rival Duke. Sagula has been at the helm for five of UNC's ACC crowns and seven of its 11 NCAA appearances, the winningest coach in school history. In 2004, Sagula earned his 500th career win with a 3-1 win over rival Duke. He also picked up his 300th win at Carolina with a 3-1 win over Maryland. Additionally, the Tar Heels have gone 381-246 since he joined the program in 1990, a winning percentage of 65 percent. Sagula has achieved this success after coming to Chapel Hill from the University of Pennsylvania where he compiled a 203-123 record in nine seasons, giving him a career mark of 584-369. In his 29th season overall and 20th at Carolina, Sagula will seek to capture his 600th career victory. Carolina has won more ACC titles - 11 - than any other program. Under Sagula, the team has won either the conference tournament or the regular season conference title in seven of the last 10 seasons. Sagula has the most ACC wins of any coach in history with 183, and his five ACC titles rank second among any ACC coach. Along with the five ACC titles, Sagula has guided the Tar Heels to ten top-three finishes in the league's regular-season standings, including first-place finishes in 1998, 2000, 2002, 2005 and 2008. In 14 seasons, Sagula led the Tar Heels to six appearances in the ACC championship match and 10 appearances in the ACC Tournament semifinals. The ACC discontinued the conference tournament in 2004, the Tar Heels' last appearance in the championship match. Sagula has also coached four ACC Players of the Year - Amy Peistrup in 1992, Erin Berg in 1998, Laura Greene in 2002 and Dani Nyenhuis in 2005. The 2001 team hosted the first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament for the first time. In 2002, the team again hosted matches in the tournament and topped Winthrop and No. 23 South Carolina before falling to Hawaii in the NCAA Regionals. The 2005 squad hosted for the third time, the first-ever NCAA matches played in the Dean E. Smith Center. Sagula has been honored as the AVCA East Region Coach of the Year on three occasions and was named ACC Coach of the Year in 1999, 2002 and 2005. In 2008, the Tar Heels made their 11th appearance in the NCAA tournament and first since 2005, advancing to the second round before falling to Oregon in four sets. Sagula coached the 1999 squad to an ACC title, a second-place finish in the ACC regular season and a NCAA Tournament appearance. Carolina also made its second straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament's second round. In 1998, Sagula led the squad to a regular season ACC title, a second-place finish in the ACC Tournament and the first NCAA Tournament appearance for the Tar Heels in a decade. Carolina also made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history. Sagula's players develop both on and off the court during the four years they are at Carolina. 2004 graduates Katie Wright and Jayme Mitchell were both awarded postgraduate scholarships. Two more great examples are 2002 graduates Laura Greene and Malaika Underwood. Greene was named a third-team All-America and the ACC Player of the Year in 2002 as well as a CoSIDA Academic All-America. Underwood won the 2001 ACC Tournament MVP award and earned two NCAA postgraduate scholarships. Another is former setter and current volunteer assistant Erin Berg Lindsey, who earned ACC Player of the Year honors in 1998 and received the Athletic Director's Scholar-Athlete Award, a true example of the complete student-athlete. Lindsey is currently earning a master's degree from Carolina in Sports Administration. During Sagula's tenure at Penn, the Quakers won Ivy League titles in 1983, 1986 and 1989. Sagula was also named the Ivy League Coach of the Year four consecutive seasons. In addition to his duties with the women's team at Penn, Sagula served as the head men's coach from 1981-89. His record with the men, which competed at both the varsity and club levels, was 111-75 (.597). At the December 2002 meetings of the American Volleyball Coaches Association in New Orleans, Sagula was elected president of the AVCA for a two-year term starting in January 2004. Sagula chaired the NCAA Division I All-America Committee for four years while at Penn and served four years on the AVCA Board of Directors as the Awards Chairman. A native of The Bronx, N.Y., Sagula earned his bachelor's degree from the State University of New York, College at New Paltz in 1978. While there he earned three letters in volleyball, captaining the team his senior year. During the summer of 1990, Sagula served as an assistant coach for the USA National Women's Volleyball B Team, which trained in Walnut Creek, Calif. Twice he has coached at the United States Olympic Festival - in 1987 in Chapel Hill as an assistant coach and in 1989 in Oklahoma City as a head coach. In both cases, his teams took home silver medals. Sagula married the former Ingrid Weber in May of 2008. |
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