Ryan Mariano
Owner/Club Director/Head Coach
The R and the P and the M himself. In the state of Arizona and in most of the world his résumé is unmatched. As a staff we are incredibly lucky to have someone who is such a wealth of knowledge to learn from every day! Some coaches get b-cap certified. Coach Ryan RUNS the b-cap certification. Get to know the guy behind 80+ players getting recruited and 70+ players going to D1 schools including 9 of the top 10!
Ryan was introduced to volleyball by his 7th grade PE Teacher, Mrs. Lorenze, and he never looked back. Since 7th grade, Ryan has volley-ed across the world. He was the #1 ranked indoor recruit as an Outside Hitter. He went on to play at Cal State Long Beach where he was an NCAA leader in aces and digs. Ryan played professionally overseas as an Outside Hitter and Setter for 6 years – 3 in Austria and 3 in Switzerland. In 2013, Ryan fell in love with coaching, and decided to pursue coaching full-time. Ryan came out of retirement to compete in the main draw for the 100th time in the 2014 AVP Milwaukee Tournament.
Coach Ryan’s love of coaching started back in college. As a freshman he had the opportunity to coach for Saddleback Valley Volleyball Club in Orange County. He worked with one of the younger 16 and under teams. Going into the Davis event they were ranked in the 600s. They finished the event in the top 100 which spurred a passion for coaching! Coach Ryan had the opportunity to work with Brian Gimmillero at Long Beach State working summer camps when he wasn’t playing on the beach. After college he went and played professional indoor volleyball in Europe for 6 1/2 years where he was able to asst coach both a juniors team and a division three professional team. During his last two seasons playing indoor professionally he started making his transition to beach volleyball.
In 2005, Ryan transitioned to the beach. By 2006, Ryan was ranked in the top 20 in the United States overall and top 5 defensively. Ryan maintained a spot in the top 20 through the 2012 season. After making beach volleyball his main focus he was fortunate enough to also learn from some of the greatest coaches of all time. He worked with Adam Cutrell, played with and learned from Brent Doble, and was fortunate enough to spend a lot of his career learning from Butch May (father of Misty May-Treanor)!