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Ben Briney
Assistant Volleyball Coach

Ben Briney is starting his fourth year on the Truman coaching staff as the full-time assistant coach.

In his three years at Truman, Briney has assisted head coach Jason Skoch in leading the Bulldogs to a 104-14 record. The squad has captured three NCAA Tournament bids and three MIAA tournament championships, while also spending each week in the CBS College Sports Network/AVCA Coaches poll top-10 throughout his tenure at Truman.

Briney has coached five different players – Sarah Shearman (05/06), Kelsey Wackerman (05/06), Micaela Walter (05), Allie Cherven (06/07) and Melissa Keck (07) – who have been named AVCA all-Americans. His players have demonstrated success in the classroom also, as evidenced by 19 players being listed to the MIAA Commissioner’s Academic Honor Roll in three seasons.

Briney's main responsibilities include recruiting, strength and conditioning, scouting, fundraising and running drills in practice.

During the summer of 2006, Briney was the assistant coach for the Carolina Region Junior High Performance Team - one of the teams that makes up the pipeline for the U.S. National Team.

That team went 4-3 during a trip to the Dominican Republic, which included international matches against the Dominican Youth and Junior National teams, along with some top club teams.

Briney and the Carolina team also participated in a clinic by two of the Dominican National Team coaches, including one of which who was on the Cuban men’s national coaching staff for 14 years.

Briney came to Truman after being an assistant coach for two seasons at St. Andrews Presbyterian College in North Carolina.

At St. Andrews, a NCAA Division II program in the Carolinas-Virginia Athletics Conference, Briney was involved with recruiting, on-court coaching and the development and implementation of the team’s strength and conditioning program.

In his two years at the school, the Knights went 40-24 overall. In 2003, the school advanced to the conference tournament finals after being picked seventh in the preseason poll. The following year, the team tied a school record with 14 conference victories and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

Briney coached seven all-conference athletes at St. Andrews and one conference freshman of the year. The Knights also excelled academically over his last two years there, including being ranked 10th in the nation in 2003 with a 3.54 team GPA.

Briney was also the assistant athletic trainer at St. Andrews, where he helped with the coverage of all 14 sports at the school.

Prior to moving to North Carolina, Briney was the graduate assistant athletic trainer at Southwest Baptist. He was the head athletic trainer for the men's basketball, volleyball and tennis programs at the school and was the host athletic trainer for the 2003 NCAA Division II regional tennis tournament.

Other volleyball experience includes being a member of the Athletics in Action men's volleyball team that toured Nigeria on an international sports ministry trip in 2003, serving as a camp clinician at Campbell University, Elon University, and St. Louis University, and also being an assistant coach of the Carolina Region High Performance youth team in 2005.

The Missouri native graduated from Southwest Baptist in 2001 with a Bachelor of Science in Sport Management and a minor in Psychology. He earned his Masters of Education from SBU in 2004. Also in 2004, he passed his strength and conditioning test to gain CSCS credentials from the National Strength and Conditioning Association.

Briney also serves as the faculty advisor for Truman’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes huddle.