Coastal Carolina University Athletics

Two-time All-American Valerie Nichol joined the Coastal Carolina women's volleyball staff as the volunteer assistant coach in February 2022.

Nichol came to Coastal Carolina after spending the 2021 fall season as the assistant head coach at McCutcheon High School in Lafayette, Indiana, and serving as the volunteer assistant coach at her alma mater Purdue in the 2020 fall season.
 
In the fall of 2021, Nichol helped lead McCutcheon High School to its first IHSAA Class 4A State Championship in school history. She mentored the sophomore setter into earning MaxPreps High School Volleyball second-team All-American honors and designed the offensive schemes and game plans for each match throughout the season.
 
As the volunteer coach at Purdue in fall 2020, Nichol conducted daily setter position training sessions focusing on quantity of quality reps, worked alongside the staff to review and analyze training sessions to make practices more productive, and used VolleyMetrics to create a scouting report to effectively attack and
defend an opponent.
 
While the Boilermakers did not play in fall 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Nichol played a big part in helping Purdue go 16-7 overall and advanced to the 2020 NCAA Division I Elite 8 in the 2021 spring season.
 
Nichol has also worked several collegiate camps, including summer camps at Purdue, Kentucky, Florida Southern College, Redlands University, and All-American Volleyball Camps, and has club coaching experience with The Academy Boiler Juniors program.
As a student-athlete, Nichol was a four-year starter as a pin attacker and setter for Purdue from 2011-14. She was a two-time AVCA All-American and twice garnered AVCA All-Region and All-Big Ten honors while helping lead the Boilermakers to two NCAA Division I Sweet 16 appearances and one NCAA Division I Elite 8 appearance.
 
Nichol was also a member of the USA National A2 Team in 2012 and 2013, a member of the USA College National Team U22 in 2014 in Europe for the Global Challenge, and part of the Women’s USA National Team Training Camp in 2017.
 
She went on to play professionally for seven years, winning the 2016-17 German Cup Championship, the 2016-17 German Super Cup Championship, and twice finishing as the German League runner-up with Allianz MTV Stuttgart of Germany from 2015-17 before moving on to play in Poland with the Impel Wroclaw (2017-18) and LKS Commercecon Lodz (2018-19) for two years. She then returned to Germany to play with SC Potsdam from 2019-20 before playing the 2021 spring season with the Athletes Unlimited Professional Volleyball League in Dallas, Texas, and the 2021 summer season with Las Pinkin De Corozal in Puerto Rico.
 
An Academic Big Ten selection, Nichol graduated from Purdue with a bachelor’s degree in movement and sport science and a minor in psychology in 2015.