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“Self-reflect often - coaching is an incredible journey filled with many loops, barriers, and opportunities…”
It wasn’t that long ago that Jennifer Neilson was leading on the court, and now she’s leading from the sidelines.
Neilson’s coaching career began before she hung up her kneepads, acting as an assistant coach for Team BC’s U16 women’s team in 2013 and the Team Ontario U18 team in 2014. After graduating from the University of Toronto in 2015, she joined the University of Windsor as an assistant while she continued her education with a Master’s in human kinetics.
She’s since gone on to be the head coach of the Halton Region Volleyball Club, Team Ontario’s U16 women’s team, and with the Ontario Volleyball Association as a high-performance coordinator and apprentice coach. In 2018, she was named the head coach of the York University Lions.
In her playing days, Neilson was an Ontario University Athletics all-star three years in a row from 2013 to 2015 and a U SPORTS national championship all-star in 2015. She was also a two-time academic all-Canadian and twice attended Volleyball Canada selection camps for the senior A team in 2014 and the FISU Games roster in 2015.
Volleyball Canada recently had a chance to talk with Neilson about her coaching career and some general thoughts on coaching in the sport.