Los Angeles

On June 7, the West Coast Conference added women's beach volleyball as a WCC-sponsored sport for the upcoming 2015-16 academic year. As the sport continues to quickly gain status within the NCAA and the WCC, LMU Athletics Director Dr. William Husak announced today, Aug. 5, the hiring of John Mayer as the LMU beach volleyball head coach.

"The sport of beach volleyball has quickly grown at all levels, especially within the NCAA. We added the sport in 2012 and since have seen the positive and important impact on our department. As the sport grows, we wanted to continue to establish it here at LMU," said Dr. Husak. "We are very excited to have John take over the program on a full-time basis. He has had success at all levels of volleyball and we are fortunate he will be the program's first official head coach."

John Mayer served the last four seasons as a volunteer assistant coach working with the LMU sand volleyball program. He has also been the head coach of the men's volleyball program at Santa Monica College since 2008. He will leave that position to join the Lions full-time.

"I'm honored and thrilled to coach the beach team at LMU," said Mayer. "To be able to work with and learn from Tom Black, who is one of the premier coaches in the volleyball world, is an amazing opportunity. He has built a nationally competitive program which includes a culture of quality student-athletes. I look forward to working with those athletes as well as bring in some of the top beach athletes from here in southern California and around the country."

In its first three seasons as a sport at LMU, the beach volleyball program has seen success. And Mayer is excited at the opportunity.

"We are one of the few schools in the country that will actually be practicing at the beach, which is a huge advantage for training and developing our athletes," said Mayer. "The sport of beach volleyball has taken off at the collegiate level with schools all over the country adding teams. Having the WCC now involved with a postseason championship shows how big the sport has become in a few short years. I imagine beach volleyball will soon be one of the premier sports for female athletes at the college level."

Beach volleyball became the WCC's 15th sponsored sport. The conference will also conduct a women's beach volleyball championship in the Spring of 2016. Six teams currently sponsor beach volleyball programs.

"Coming off a season where Sarah Sponcil and Betsi Metter finished second at the AVCA collegiate pairs championship shows that we can and will be a successful program," said Mayer. "It's awesome to see alumni like Betsi compete in the Pan AM games and former Lion volleyball players Heather Hughes and Emily Day playing professionally on the FIVB world tour in pursuit of qualifying for Rio in the 2016 Olympic games."

A 2005 graduate of Pepperdine University, Mayer helped guide Pepperdine to a National Championship in his senior year. Before transferring to Pepperdine, Mayer won a pair of State Championships playing at Pierce College.

Mayer made his AVP debut in 2003 at Hermosa Beach. In 2009, Mayer with partner Jeff Nygaard won the AVP Open at San Diego and was also named the Most Improved Player. In 2013, Mayer finished top-10 in all six events he entered into. Aside from his AVP playing career, Mayer is the head men's volleyball coach at Santa Monica City College, and is assisted by AVP players Yariv Lerner and Billy Allen. In 2014, Mayer will pair up with Brad Keenan for the AVP Tour.