Sheri Sanders

Sheri Sanders is the Women's Assistant Coach at UC Riverside

Sheri Sanders joined the UC Riverside volleyball staff in July 2023 as an assistant coach following one season at Washington State.

Sanders spent the past 30 plus years providing specialized skills training and has developed hundreds of top-ranking setters in the SoCal region. Sanders is a former First-Team AVCA All-American and led Long Beach State to its first NCAA Division I national title in 1989.

Sanders was a four-year starter for the Beach, where she was later inducted into the LBSU Athletics Hall of Fame twice, once as an individual player in 2001 and again in 2011 as a member of the 1989 national championship team.

Sanders was named to the Big West All-Freshman Team in 1986, Second Team in 1988 and First Team in 1989. She still holds program and Division I records in categories of assists (6,031), digs (1,180) and service aces (151). In 2017, Sanders was recognized as fourth on the top 10 best female volleyball players in the history in Southern California

Immediately following her senior year at Long Beach State, Sanders was invited to join the USA National Team with NCAA MVP teammate Tara Cross-Battle. Sanders signed and remained with the team for nearly two and a half years, earning third at the 1991 FIVB World Cup to qualify for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.

Sanders then went on to play for the next seven years on several professional teams domestically for the PVL and NVA, and was voted in as the director of players personnel. After a brief international tour throughout Europe, Sanders returned to the US to join the Bud Light 4-Person Professional Beach Volleyball Tour for Teams Nike and Forrester.

As a specialized setting instructor in Southern California, Sanders helped train the likes of nationally-renowned players like three-time Olympian Misty May-Trainer (Long Beach State). She has been instrumental in placing several top-ranking female and male prep athletes into Division I programs throughout her career like Scottee Johnson (Michigan), Sophia Lambros (Boston), Josh Rosenblum (Long Beach State), Patrick Paragus (UC Santa Barbara), Ashley Humphries (USC) and Abby Dayton (BYU).

Prior to her transition to individual skills training, Sanders founded and directed In Motion VBC in her college and hometown of Long Beach. Throughout the 90s, her program produced several nationally-ranked teams in all age divisions. Adding to her youth coaching resume, Sanders attained a couple of league titles and CIF playoff finishes at Cerritos HS. Recently, Sanders helped lead the boys' 18-1s team to a bronze medal at the 2022 AAU Nationals directly followed by a seventh-place finish at USA Nationals.

In the late 90’s Sheri first stepped into the collegiate coaching arena as an assistant at Golden West College. She was quickly snatched away by top ranked world class player Paula Weishoff to join her at Concordia University as their offensive coordinator. There, Sanders assisted Paula in leading the team to the top of their conference and a second-round postseason appearance.