
Hawai’i associate coach Milan Zarkovic on Tuesday was named the AVCA Assistant Coach of the Year, the second time for the Serbian national. His first came in 2020.
It is rewarding to have one more person from our program be recognized for our team’s success,” head coach Charlie Wade said as the Warriors prepared for this week’s NCAA Tournament in Fairfax, Va. “I have been blessed with having a great staff for several years and this year is no different. Milan is very deserving of this award as he has worked hard to become a better coach during his time at UH.”
The announcement comes one day after a program-record six Rainbow Warriors received AVCA All-America honors and on the heels of the AVCA Player of the Year award, in which setter Jakob Thelle is looking to become UH’s fifth recipient. The Player of the Year award will be announced on Wednesday.
A UH assistant has won the Assistant Coach of the Year award three times since it debuted in 2010. Former assistant coach Josh Walker was the 2019 recipient. In addition, Wade was the AVCA Coach of the Year in 2019.
Zarkovic joined Wade’s staff in 2014 and has helped guide the Warriors to six NCAA Tournament appearances and three Big West championships. A respected international coach, Zarkovic has more than a decade of national team coaching experience with Serbian and Belarus national teams.
The National Coach of the Year went to UCLA’s John Speraw, who is in his 11th season with his alma mater.
The Bruins (29-2) are seeded No. 1 into this year’s tournament. Speraw earned his 400th career win and 200th win as UCLA head coach in late February when the Bruins beat UC Irvine. This is his second AVCA National Collegiate Coach of the Year honor; the first came in 2006 when he was at UC Irvine Also was named the 2023 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Men’s Volleyball Coach of the Year
Kind of a surprise. I thought that the GCU coach was a lock for COY…
Well, he wasn’t COY of the MPSF so ….
True, but Nikolov wasn’t Big West POY, and…
Don’t think he deserved POY either.
Neither did I.