Joe Sagula, a 1978 graduate of New Paltz and a Bronx, N.Y., native, finished his 31st season of coaching in 2011, and he is one of the most prolific winners in modern women's volleyball, currently serving as the head coach at the University of North Carolina. Sagula is North Carolina's winningest volleyball coach, having gone 445-281 since joining the program in 1990. He has guided UNC to five Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) titles and eight of its 12 NCAA appearances, and he has boasted 11 20-win seasons. North Carolina has won more ACC titles—11—than any other program, and he has the most ACC wins of any coach in the league's history with 224. To boot, his five ACC crowns rank second among any ACC coach. Sagula's head coaching career began in 1981 when he took over the helm of the University of Pennsylvania women's volleyball program. Over the course of his nine-year stint with the Quakers, he went 203-123, and Penn won Ivy League titles in 1983, 1986 and 1989. In addition to coaching the Quaker women's volleyball team, Sagula also served as Penn's head men's volleyball coach from 1981-89. His passion for the sport of volleyball began at New Paltz, as he competed for the Hawk men's volleyball program as a setter while earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drawing and painting. While playing at New Paltz, he was a three-year letter winner, and he captained the team his senior season.
