Coastal Carolina University Athletics

Deitre Collins-Parker, a two-time national collegiate player of the year and an AVCA Hall of Fame member, joined the Coastal Carolina University volleyball coaching staff as an associate head coach in February 2021.

Collins-Parker has over 20 years of collegiate head coaching experience and over 330 career wins.

In her lone season at CCU in 2021, Coastal opened up the fall season with an exhibition win at NC State before going 19-9 overall and 12-4 in Sun Belt Conference play. The Chants continued their domination under Forman on their home court, as CCU went 12-2 at home on the season with losses to Duke and Georgia Southern. The Chants reached the semifinals of the 2021 Sun Belt Conference Volleyball Championship Tournament, falling to the 2021 Sun Belt West Division Champions in Texas State. The Chants once again led the Sun Belt Conference in hitting percentage (.252), second in service aces per set (1.66), and were third in kills per set (13.76). The defense led the Sun Belt in blocks per set (2.53) and allowed the fewest kills per set (11.39) on the season. In Sun Belt Conference play, Coastal ranked first in kills (820), first in assists (757), first in blocks (172.0), first in blocks per set (2.67), second in hitting percentage (.274), second in assists per set (12.62), second in kills per set (13.67), and third in both service aces (92) and service aces per set (1.53).

Four Chants picked up All-Sun Belt honors, as graduate transfer Cheyenne Jones was named the Sun Belt Conference Newcomer of the Year and earned second-team honors. Super senior Ani Bozdeva earned a spot on the All-Sun Belt first team for the second consecutive season, while fellow Chants Brigitta Petrenko and Doris Carter joined Jones on the second team. Several Chants reached career milestones in 2021, as Carter, Bozdeva, and Jones all reached and surpassed the 1,000-career kills mark, while setters Petrenko and Marija Borcic each passed out their 2,000th-career assist. Defensive specialist Lina Perugini also reached a milestone, as she surpassed the 1,000-career digs mark in the season. 

Prior to coming to CCU, Collins-Parker led San Diego State to a 171-162 overall record over 11 seasons, highlighted by a Mountain West co-championship in 2012, when the Aztecs finished with a 23-8 overall mark and a 13-3 ledger in conference matches. For her efforts, she garnered Mountain West Coach of the Year accolades, as SDSU received an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. In addition, the 2012 campaign marked SDSU’s best conference record and league finish since the 1996 season and top overall record since 1995.

She led the Aztecs to six winning seasons over the last nine years and mentored a pair of All-America honorees in Andrea Hannasch and Johnna Fouch along with 11 all-conference selections, including 2012 Mountain West Newcomer of the Year Michelle Waber and four-time all-conference selection Deja Harris who completed her illustrious Aztec career ranked eighth on the school’s all-time charts with a .322 hitting percentage. 

Collins-Parker arrived at San Diego State after five seasons as the head coach at Cornell, where she led the Big Red to three Ivy League titles and two NCAA tournament appearances. Under her tutelage, the Big Red had seven players named first-team All-Ivy, including two-time Ivy League Player of the Year and honorable mention All-American Elizabeth Bishop.

Prior to taking over at Cornell in 2004, Collins-Parker spent the previous eight seasons as head coach at UNLV, earning Western Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honors in 1998 after taking a dormant volleyball program and leading the Lady Rebels to a 23-8 record and a WAC tournament semifinals appearance.

Before her stint at UNLV, Collins-Parker served as an assistant coach at South Alabama, Northern Arizona, and Houston for one year each.

She has plenty of international coaching experience as well. She served as the head coach of the 1998 U.S. junior national team, directing her squad to a gold medal in the national qualifier, and served in the same capacity during the summer of 2000 (silver medal) and 2001 (bronze medal).

She also led a Mountain West all-star team on a tour of Europe that concluded with a bronze medal third-place finish at the European Global Challenge in Pula, Croatia in the summer of 2014.

A former member of the U.S. national team and a three-time AVCA All-American at the University of Hawai’i, Collins-Parker was the starting middle blocker for the 1988 Olympic Team in Seoul, South Korea, and was an alternate for the 1992 team in Barcelona, Spain. She played in over 130 international matches and earned bronze medals at the 1986 Goodwill Games and the 1987 Pan-Am Games.

As a collegian, Collins-Parker was a two-time Broderick Award honoree as the National Player of the Year (1983 and 1984) after leading the Rainbow Wahine to consecutive national titles and a 110-5 record in her final three seasons. Collins capped off her career by becoming the first volleyball player to be awarded the Broderick Cup, given to the nation’s best collegiate athlete in all sports. She was twice named to the NCAA All-Tournament team and still holds the record for solo blocks in one NCAA Championship Tournament (15 in 1982). She was one of six players named to the NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball 25th Anniversary Team in October 2005.

She played professionally in the Italian League (1988-89) and the French League (1989-91), capturing the French League Championship twice and the European Cup of Champions in 1990. 

Collins-Parker received the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award during the 2009 NCAA Convention in Washington, D.C. The award honors former student-athletes who successfully completed collegiate careers in various sports and have excelled in their chosen professions on their 25th anniversary of completing their athletic eligibility.

She was inducted into the AVCA Hall of Fame in the fall of 2008. She currently serves as a member of the AVCA Board of Directors and the chairperson on the AVCA Minority Coaches Committee.

A 1995 graduate of Hawai’i with a bachelor of arts in broadcast communications, Collins-Parker is a member of the USA Volleyball Coaching Accreditation Program and is a CAP level III accredited coach. She currently has membership with the AVCA, Coaches Accreditation Program, Kaepa Gold Medal Clinics, Black Coaches Association, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes.