Delaney Rose
Camp Director
Delaney Rose is the Head Volleyball Coach at the University of Alabama Birmingham.
UAB Director of Athletics Mark Ingram named Delaney Clesen as the head coach of the Blazers beach volleyball program on Aug. 17, 2023. Clesen is in her second season as head coach and her third season at UAB overall.
Clesen, a 2024 recipient of the AVCA Thirty Under 30, guided the Blazers to a school record 19 wins in her first season as head coach (2023-24). Clesen helped senior Arden Copping become the winningest player in program history (70 career victories), while she and teammate Jasmine Haas had the most prolific season in school history by establishing a new school record with 21 Court 1 victories.
Additionally, the beach volleyball program had the highest collective GPA of any team at UAB during the 2023-24 school year and was awarded the AVCA Team Academic Award.
Clesen joined the program in the spring of 2023 as UAB’s assistant coach and helped the Blazers win 18 matches, which was a school record until last season when UAB won 19 under Clesen’s direction as head coach.
In 2023, Clesen coached Conference USA Freshman of the Year Jasmine Haas and First Team All-Conference selection Arden Copping. She also helped guide Brooke Pertuit to a program-record tying 22 individual wins.
Prior to joining UAB in January of 2023, Clesen served as the assistant coach for beach and indoor at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla. for two years (2021-22).
Clesen played indoor at the University of Pittsburgh from 2011-14 and was one of the best defensive players in Pitt volleyball history as she ranks third all-time in career digs with 1,607. Following Pitt, she did a graduate transfer to Florida Atlantic where she played beach for two years (2015-16) and earned Honorable Mention All-America honors on the sand in 2016.
Following her collegiate playing career, Clesen played indoor professionally for VBC Kerzers in Switzerland from 2017-18. She then returned to America in 2018 and played professionally on the AVP beach circuit from 2019-2022.
Along with playing professionally, Clesen has been coaching since 2017 which included stints as the program director for Chicago Sand Volleyball (2018-19), Montini Catholic freshman volleyball coach (2018-19), New Wave Club coach (2018-19), Gold Medal Squared Independent coach (2017-2020) Legacy Volleyball Club indoor coach (2020-21) and Calvary Christian indoor and beach assistant (2020-21). Additionally, she was an elementary school counselor at Sexton Elementary in St. Petersburg from 2020-2022.
Clesen is a native of Evanston, Illinois. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2014 with a degree in Media and Professional Communication and earned a Master of Education in counseling from FAU in 2019.
Clesen and her fiancé Josh are getting married in November of 2024.