Vanderbilt Hires Kentucky Volleyball Associate Head Coach Anders Nelson

In case you’ve all forgotten, Vanderbilt is bringing volleyball back in 2025. Today was a big step forward in starting off strong when the team hits the court in 32 months. We just hired Anders Nelson away from Kentucky after 11 very successful seasons there, including 7 seasons as associated head coach, a national championship in 2020, and 6 SEC championships. Maybe most important to note for someone building a program from scratch, he has helped Kentucky bring in a top 10 recruiting class 5 of the last 9 years. Kentucky reported he resigned his position today around the same time that Vanderbilt announced his hiring.

Given almost 3 years with no hands-on coaching to do, I think it’s fair to expect big things from the inaugural recruiting class. We’ll need momentum to compete in the new-look, 16-team SEC, and I think it’s great we’re making a hire like this from within the conference. We’ll need someone who understands the SEC and has time to prepare for the introduction of the cows and the boomers. Finally, while he did get his MBA from Kentucky, he is originally from Wisconsin and graduated from Ball State; I don’t think we need to worry about some massive underlying loyalty. With all that said, this is all-around an exciting hire, and I look forward to what Coach Nelson can do in Nashville. I especially look forward to the team’s first trip to Lexington.