Deana Jespersen is entering her tenth season in 2023 as head women’s volleyball coach at Rowan University. We are thrilled to have Coach Deana on the coaching staff at DUVBC!

The Profs captured its seventh NJAC Championship in program history in 2021 and first since 2004, culminating with a berth in the NCAA Tournament. Jespersen was honored with the NJAC Coach of the Year (her third honor) and the AVCA Region 4 Coach of Year Honors as the Profs went 27-6 and a perfect 8-0 mark in conference play. The team earned an NCAA regional ranking as high as #3 and produced four All-Region players and one AVCA All-American (Natalie Ogden), the second in program history.

The 2019 Profs went 19-15 and posted a 7-1 conference record. Rowan enjoyed a six-match winning streak late in the year, and earned its first-ever NCAA regional ranking of 10th in the final weeks of the regular season.
 
In 2018, Jespersen earned the NJAC Joy Solomen Coach of the Year award for the second time in her career as she guided Rowan to a 17-16 mark, and a 6-2 league record to earn the second seed in the conference championship.
 
The Profs have earned a spot in the NJAC Championship Tournament in eight of the nine years of Jespersen’s tenure (excluding the 2020 season) and in 2017, qualified for conference tournament for the 11th-straight time, posting a 4-4 league record and 12-20 overall mark. The 2016 team went 4-4 in the NJAC and 9-23 overall with the Profs going 11-22 and 5-3 in the NJAC in 2015.
 
Jespersen joined Rowan in 2014 and led the Profs to a 6-2 NJAC record to clinch the second seed in the conference tournament. She was named the league’s Coach of the Year for her efforts, which included a 16-16 overall mark.
 
Jespersen’s coaching career spans 16 seasons as she came to Rowan after 10 years as the head coach at Neumann University. She compiled a 179-156 record there and her overall career mark now stands at 264-267.
 
Her teams at Neumann won three Colonial States Athletic Conference (CSAC) championships, in 2007, 2008 and 2012, while the Knights advanced to the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament each of those years. She earned the CSAC Coach of the Year award five times, including in 2012 when she led the team to a perfect 11-0 conference mark. Neumann was the CSAC runner-up three times and made three appearances in the ECAC Tournament (2013, 2011, 2006).
 
Jespersen coached the 2012 CSAC Player of the Year at Neumann and saw three of her players earn the conference’s Rookie of the Year award. One of her student-athletes also received the NCAA Ethnic Minority and Women’s Enhancement Postgraduate Scholarship for Careers in Athletics.
 
Jespersen has served as the head coach of the Mystique Volleyball Club since 2004. Prior to beginning her stint at Neumann, she was the head coach at Swarthmore College in 1999 and was an assistant coach at Eastern University from 1996 to 1997.
 
A 1996 graduate of Elizabethtown College, she served as team co-captain and received the team’s Most Valuable Player award three times while earning All-Middle Athletic Conference honors as a senior.