When Kate McCauley was hired as the Saint Vincent men’s volleyball coach in October 2021, she couldn’t help but feel like she was on an island. A woman coaching a man’s sport, after all, was rare.

McCauley hardly thought of herself as a trail blazer, but she did harbor hope she would see more women coaching men’s sports. With the 2025 men’s volleyball season underway, McCauley has company, some of it right here in Western Pennsylvania.

According to recruiting website NCSAsports.org, there are 155 men’s volleyball teams across all three NCAA divisions. TribLive found 16 of those teams are coached by women, including three in the immediate vicinity: Saint Vincent (McCauley), Geneva (Alexis Ritson) and Mount Aloysius (Jill Glover).

The other coaches are Gwendolyn Rouse (Benedict), Jaime Snyder (D’Youville), Lauren Ford (Edward Waters), Emily Butler (Greenville), Katie Barnett (Hood), Nickie Sanlin (McKendree), Joan Braid (Neumann), Brittany Welch (North Park), Kelly Magliano (Roosevelt), Dani Kohut Lynch (Simpson), Karissa Cumberbatch (Virginia Wesleyan), Kristy Kamer (Warren Wilson) and Batya Schreier (Yeshiva/interim).

There are several more women who serve as assistant men’s coaches.

None of the 16 programs is Division I, although D’Youville, a D-II school located in Buffalo, N.Y., plays in the Northeast Conference. But next season, when Maryland Eastern Shore begins intercollegiate men’s volleyball competition — UMES will play in the NEC — Anitra Brockman will be the coach, making her the first of a men’s Division I volleyball program.

Brockman previously coached the Central State men’s team in the Division II Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, where she coached against women at Benedict and Edward Waters.

Closer to home, Geneva faced Mount Aloysius on Jan. 21 in Cresson, pitting Glover against Ritson, both in their first seasons as head coaches. Saint Vincent will play at Mount Aloysius on Feb. 11, and Geneva and Saint Vincent will face each other twice in Presidents’ Athletic Conference play (Feb. 20 in Unity Township and March 19 in Beaver Falls).

Glover, who played collegiately at Edinboro, said she was excited to look down the sideline and see another female coach.

“It was really reassuring that this is the place we’ve worked toward being, and we’re able to take on this position and be successful,” Glover, a West Shamokin grad, said.

Added McCauley: “When I first started, I was the only one. Now I’m four years in, and there’s two more on the radar and a few more I’ve (faced) in nonconference games. … That colleges are way more open to a female coaching a male sport is awesome.”

With McCauley being a virtual grizzled veteran on the men’s volleyball coaching scene, most of the “shock value” has worn off when she approaches potential recruits. Ritson and Glover are experiencing the recruiting circuit for the first time, and they agreed that while the players might raise a few eyebrows at being approached by a female coach, it is mainly the parents who are taken aback and ask the bulk of the questions.

“Usually the athlete is not asking that,” Ritson said. “I don’t know if they’re thinking it and don’t want to ask, because there’s not much of that. The parents are more curious, or maybe they’re more confident to ask.”

Ritson isn’t Geneva’s first female men’s volleyball coach. Women’s coach Wendy Smith served as the men’s interim coach last season after Curt Cosner stepped down following the Golden Tornadoes’ run to the 2023 Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference title. Ritson was Smith’s associate head coach.

So when Ritson assumed the reins of Geneva’s program, the transition wasn’t a big one. Nor was Ritson’s hire of another woman, Savannah Byers, as assistant coach.

Glover was on the boys coaching staff at West Shamokin, so working with players of the opposite sex wasn’t foreign to her. But she was new to college coaching and would be the first female coach of Mount Aloysius’ men’s volleyball team.

“There was an opportunity to apply, and, obviously, it’s a big jump from coaching high school to college,” she said. “But I was like, I’ll put in my application and see what happens.

“When I was interviewing, Mount Aloysius just said they wanted the best candidate who was going to do the best job.”

Glover said her goal is to bring consistency and stability to the Mounties’ program, which is on its third coach in its four-year existence. A mental health therapist, Glover recently began working for a private practice so she could have a flexible schedule and devote as much time as possible to the volleyball team.

The response to her taking over the program, she said, has been positive.

“I came into a pretty good group of guys at Mount Aloysius,” she said. “Very respectful and wanting to learn, wanting to grow and they’re very receptive to feedback.

“I really see a lot of hard work. … I’ve had to be stern, and I’ve had to be assertive. I have raised my voice, and they have been able to step up and not crumble from it.”

The question now becomes: Will there be more women coaching men’s volleyball teams in the future?

From sheer numbers, it would seem logical. At the NCAA level, there are more than 1,000 women’s volleyball programs across all three divisions. That means a lot more women with experience in the college game.

Men’s volleyball, meanwhile, continues to grow. The PAC and Old Dominion Athletic Conference, both Division III, are in their first seasons sanctioning men’s volleyball. In addition to UMES, Northern Kentucky will join the Division I ranks next year.

So with more teams will come more jobs, and plenty of qualified women will be at the ready.

“I hope it’s evolved into that,” McCauley said. “There just needs to be a little more change over, and I think some of those Division I schools have some of that past thinking that you need a man to teach a man. But there are a lot of women on those staffs … so just seeing that their eyes are being opened, I think that’s even better.”

Added Ritson: “With the creation of more coaching opportunities, there would, naturally, be more women in those roles. … I’m looking forward to the answer.”

The growth rate of women coaching men’s volleyball — or other men’s sports — remains to be seen. But there is a confidence among the coaches that it will happen sooner or later.

The message McCauley and her counterparts have for women considering coaching men’s sports: don’t be afraid.

“I talk about this a lot in the platform I have, being a woman coaching a men’s sport,” McCauley said. “More people need to be able to see that, and a lot of young women need to be able to see that. You don’t need to be boxed in to doing just one thing.”

Added Ritson: “At the end of the day, it’s volleyball, and it’s people. If you can work with people, you can coach men’s volleyball if you know volleyball.”

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