John Anselmo joined the sidelines of the Pepperdine women’s volleyball team as a volunteer assistant coach in 2020.
Anselmo brings a wealth of coaching and playing experience – both on the hardwood and the beach – to the program. His most recent positions were held at West Los Angeles College, where he served as head coach of the women’s volleyball program as well as an adjunct instructor teaching Kinesiology. During that time, he also served as the Director and Founder of the West Volleyball Club for both girls and boys.
Before his days coaching at West LA College, he worked as a professional beach volleyball trainer and coach for both professional and youth athletes form 2016-18, and in 2018 also served as a volunteer assistant for Team USA men’s and women’s national Olympic training programs. The year prior, he worked as an assistant coach with USA National Collegiate Beach Training.
Prior to working at the national level, Anselmo coached clinics and at the high school level.
In his collegiate playing days, Anselmo was an outside hitter and defensive specialist, lettering four years at UCLA and helping the Bruins to two NCAA Division I National Championship titles. After college, he hit the beach to compete in the Association Volleyball Professionals or AVP circuit. He achieved an individual national ranking of 17th in the USA and finished a career-best 7th twice in his career.
Married to Sherry and has three children, Mary, Natalie and Johnny. Natalie currently plays beach volleyball at Arizona and Johnny is a sophomore on the CSUN men’s volleyball team. He and his family live in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
