Allison Keeley enters her fifth season at the helm of Columbia Volleyball, carrying a 27-45 record at Columbia over the past four seasons.
During the 2021 season, Keeley led the Lions through their first season since 2019, having had the 2020 season canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Junior outside hitter Noelle Foster earned Second Team All-Ivy League honors, finishing with 315 total kills and she led the Ivy League in total points (345.5) and points per set (4.27).
Keeley also saw the Lions snap a four-year stretch of losing their Ivy League opener with a four-set win at home over Cornell on Sept. 25, 2021.
The 2019 season was an historic season for the Lions as Keeley helped power Chichi Ikwuazom to become the first AVCA All-American in program history as the record setting season by Ikwuazom saw her earn honorable mention. The year also saw Ikwuazom set a single season program record in kills (495) as she was consistently at the top of the nation in several categories.
During her first season (2018), Keeley led the Lions to a 10-14 (4-10 IVY) season, racking up the most wins by a first-year head coach at Columbia since Jonathan Wilson recorded 12 wins during his first season (2009).
Keeley was named Columbia University's head volleyball coach in March of 2018. Keeley has more than 20 years of collegiate coaching experience, including 11 as a head coach at the Div. I level.
Keeley came to Columbia after spending the 2017 season as the assistant and interim head coach at Boston College. She has also served as a collegiate head coach at East Stroudsburg (2012-16), UNLV (2004-10) and Villanova (2001-03).
Keeley’s head-coaching experience spans the Atlantic Coast, Mountain West and BIG EAST conferences. She is a proven winner who left UNLV as the all-time winningest coach in program history.
Keeley's collegiate coaching career began as an assistant at her alma mater Carleton College in 1995. A year later she was named the head coach at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, California. Keeley moved to Southern Arkansas University from 1998-2000 before being named the head coach at Villanova in 2001.
In three years at Villanova, Keeley took a team that finished last in the BIG EAST with just two wins and guided the Wildcats to the semifinals of the conference tournament. She coached the program to its first winning season since 1997 with an 18-16 overall mark in 2002. The Wildcats won 11 more matches than the year prior and finished with an RPI of 85.
Keeley spent the next seven years at UNLV, where she won 108 matches and guided the Rebels to their first Mountain West Conference championship and NCAA Tournament appearance in 2007. That year, the Rebels went 24-6 with a 12-4 mark in the Mountain West and achieved a top-25 national ranking. UNLV earned the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament and defeated Utah in five sets to win the championship. They took Long Beach State to five sets in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Keeley’s team finished the year with an RPI of 19.
Keeley was named Mountain West Conference Coach of the Year and AVCA West Region Coach of the Year in 2007. Her seven seasons at UNLV included two 20-win campaigns, also going 20-10 in 2006, as well as five seasons with at least 15 wins. She also coached one of the best players in UNLV history, Lauren Miramontes, to an All-America selection. Miramontes still holds UNLV single-season records for kills (521) and kills per set (4.65), as well as the career record for block solos (80).
After taking a two-year hiatus from coaching, Keeley emerged as the head coach at NCAA Division II East Stroudsburg University in 2012. She spent five years in eastern Pennsylvania, rebuilding a program that went 4-23 the year before she arrived to 14 wins in her final season. A year after she left, her first recruiting class went 17-13 in 2017.
Keeley has coached a combined 15 all-conference selections, two All-Region selections and one All-American, along with two conference Freshman of the Year selections. Besides coaching success on the court, Keeley’s players have also excelled in the classroom. She produced 45 Academic All-Mountain West Conference selections, which included tying the program record of 10 honorees in both 2005 and 2008. Two of her players at UNLV earned CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine All-District honors, including one on the All-District First Team. Keeley’s focus on academics was also evident at Villanova, where 33 of her student-athletes earned BIG EAST academic honors, including another that landed CoSIDA All-District distinction.
Keeley began her coaching career at Sparks High School in Sparks, Nevada in 1993 and 1994.
Keeley competed in volleyball and track and field at Carleton, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in political science and education in 1990. She was an all-conference setter and went on to compete in Women’s Open Beach Volleyball and USA Volleyball Women’s Open Volleyball. She earned her master’s degree in education and physical education from Azusa Pacific (Calif.) in 1998.
