Jose Loiola

UCLA Beach Volleyball head coach Jenny Johnson Jordan announced (June 26, 2023) the return of beach volleyball Hall of Famer and current USA Beach Volleyball National Team head coach Jose Loiola as an assistant coach. Loiola was a volunteer assistant coach for the Bruins in 2021, helping guide UCLA to a Pac-12 Championship and an NCAA runner-up finish. He just completed his second season as an assistant coach in 2025 and left the UCLA program to take over as the head coach at South Carolina.
 
The Bruins went 67-14 (.827) in Loiola's two seasons at UCLA and he was named the AVCA Assistant Coach of the Year in 2025. The 2025 season began with Loiola coaching UCLA's court one pair of freshman Sally Perez and junior Maggie Boyd to the AVCA Fall Pairs National Championship on Nov. 17, 2024.
 
After Loiola’s previous season with the Bruins, he went on to coach 2020 Olympian Tri Bourne and also served as head coach of the USA Volleyball squad that won gold at the 2021 U19 World Championships. In 2022, he coached Miles Partain and Andy Benesh to gold at the FIVB Challenger Dubai.  
 
Loiola began his professional coaching career in 2014, coaching Casey Jennings and UCLA alum Jeremy Casebeer. He mentored three different teams in 2015, highlighted by the duo of Theo Brunner and Nick Lucena, who placed fourth at the FIVB World Championship. Also in 2015, he coached the tandem of Irene (Hester) Pollock and Caitlin Ledoux. Pollock would later help guide the Bruins to their second-straight NCAA Championship in 2019 as the volunteer assistant coach. Loiola coached Sara Hughes and Kelley Claes in 2017 to an AVP victory in Chicago. He also coached Hughes and Summer Ross in 2018-19, as the pair would claim two tour stop victories in the AVP and won gold in Russia on the FIVB circuit.
 
He got his start in coaching in 2011 as the head coach of Team Wave (indoor volleyball club). He has also served stints as an assistant coach at West Torrance High School in 2012 and that same year was an assistant coach for the Men's U19 World Championship in Cypress. Also in 2012, he served as the head coach for the U17 Women's Junior National Team. He was a head coach for the U21 Men's and Women's World Championships in Croatia in 2013. In 2014, he guided the U21 Women to a bronze medal at the World Championship and served as the head coach for the U21 Junior National Team in 2015. He also served as the head coach of the U21 Travel Team that went to China. He spent four years (2015-18) as a head coach for the USA Volleyball Beach Tryouts (High Performance), which is now the National Team Development Program.
 
Loiola recorded 55 victories over his long and legendary career. He won titles for eight straight years, from 1995 through 2002, including 13 AVP titles in 1997 and seven FIVB titles in 1999. Loiola has experienced success both on the AVP Tour as well as internationally, winning 35 domestic events plus 20 on the FIVB Tour. Among his many wins were the 1997 King of the Beach, 1999 FIVB World Championship (Marseille, France), 2001 Goodwill Games (Australia) and twice winning the Manhattan Beach Open (1995 and 2000). He was an Olympian for Brazil in 2000 (Sydney), finishing ninth with Emanuel Rego.
 
He won four AVP Offensive Player of the Year awards (1995-98). Loiola was the first player to be selected AVP Rookie of the Year (1993) and then MVP (1997). His first title, an indoor tournament in 1995, marked the first time an AVP event was won by foreign-born players, as he claimed the title with Eduardo Bacil. In 2001, the FIVB chose Loiola and Rego as one of the two best beach volleyball teams of the '90s.
 
Loiola, a junior national champion in Brazil, was inducted into the CBVA Beach Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2014 and the International Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2017.