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Lady Cougar Volleyball Coach

Coach SwansonPaul Swanson is entering his 26th season as the head coach of the MVNU women's volleyball program. Over the past 25 years, Swanson has led the Lady Cougars to an 870-298 overall record (.745), seven conference titles, seventeen National Christian College Athletic Association region championships, and seventeen trips to the NCCAA National Tournament. MVNU has also won 30 or more matches in each of the past sixteen seasons, topped the 40-win mark during seven of those years, and recorded 50-plus wins twice.

In 2008, Swanson guided the Lady Cougars to a 36-11 overall record that included a 10-4 American Mideast Conference mark and a berth in both the AMC Tournament and the NCCAA National Tournament, where the team advanced to the semifinals.

Swanson has led his teams to the NAIA Region Tournament for fourteen straight seasons with the Lady Cougars advancing to the championship match six times (1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005, and 2007) before regions were done away with due to direct qualification from the conference.

During the decade of the 1990s, Swanson led MVNU to an incredible 122-9 home record that included a then-NAIA record 70-match winning streak.

Swanson has been selected as the conference Coach of the Year five times and named the NCCAA region Coach of the Year sixteen times. In addition, he was featured in Sports Illustrated in the "Faces in the Crowd" section of the October 6, 1997 issue.

In 2008, Swanson was named to the NAIA Hall of Fame - becoming the third MVNU player or coach to be so honored.  He was named to the NCCAA Hall of Fame in 2005 and then became the NAIA's all-time wins leader and was inducted into the MVNU Cougar Wall of Fame in 2006.

Swanson has developed nine NAIA All-Americans, 21 NCCAA All-Americans, one NCCAA National Player of the Year, and three conference Players of the Year during his tenure at MVNU. He has also had fifteen NAIA All-America Scholar-Athletes and one CoSIDA Academic All-American.

A native of Illinois, Swanson graduated from North Park (IL) College in 1975 after playing basketball for the Vikings. He went to West Virginia University after graduation and served as an assistant coach while working on his master's degree.

Swanson traveled to Japan and South America as a coach with Athletes in Action during the summers of 1982 and 1983 respectively before taking a head coaching position at Waynesburg (PA) College in 1983. After a 15-15 campaign at Waynesburg, Swanson came to MVNU where he has now had 21 straight winning seasons.

Swanson, who also teaches in the Physical Education Department at MVNU, resides in Mount Vernon with his wife, Susie.  The couple has three sons:  Casey, Brady, and Riley.  In 2002, Swanson was honored as the recipient of MVNU's President's Award for Excellence in Teaching.

To contact Coach Swanson, you can e-mail him at pswanson@mvnu.edu.
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