Terry Liskevych

Liskevych was born in a displaced person's camp in Munich, Germany, to a family of refugees from the Ukraine who fled to Germany during the Soviet invasion of Western Ukraine in 1944.

Taras "Terry" Liskevych ; born October 14, 1948, in Munich, Germany) served as the United States women's national volleyball team head coach from 1985 to 1996. During his tenure Liskevych posted over 300 international victories.

The highlights of these victories were:

In 1951, when Taras was three, the family immigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago, Illinois.

Growing up, Liskevych led a life fairly typical of a post-World War II Eastern European immigrant child – attending a local grammar school, St. Nicholas, and going to Ukrainian language school on Saturdays.

He was a member of the Ukrainian scouting organization Plast, where he became an eagle scout.

His sports activities were centered in the diaspora playing table tennis, tennis, soccer and volleyball.

Liskevych attended St. Ignatius High School, where he played on the varsity tennis team and at the same time played soccer for the Chicago Lions.

He continued to play soccer at Loyola University (1965–66) and also played in the Chicago Major Division for the Lions Soccer Club.

It was in Plast that Liskevych began to play volleyball at the rather late age of 17.

He honed his skills playing and coaching the Chicago Ukrainians Team (1966–1971).

His skills developed rapidly, and within a few years he was playing for the Kenneth Allen Club of Chicago, one of the top club teams in the United States, coached by the 1968 Men's Olympic Coach, James E. (Jim) Coleman.

While at George Williams College, Liskevych began his college coaching career as an assistant men's volleyball coach under 1968 Olympic coach and U.S. Volleyball Hall of Fame member Jim Coleman.

At the same time, he coached the Chicago Volleyball Club, a top women's club team in the United States Volleyball Association.

In Chicago, Liskevych pursued his undergraduate degree at Loyola University as a pre-medical student and graduated in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science in Biology.

He attended Loyola Stritch School of Medicine in Maywood, Illinois for one year (1970–71) and dropped out in the summer of 1971 to pursue a career in volleyball.

This team produced several USA National Team Players in the early and mid-1970s.

In 1972, he completed a Master's of Science degree in Physical Education at George Williams College.

George Williams College (1972–1973)

Leading up to his National Team career, Liskevych coached men's volleyball at Ohio State University (1974–1976), where he twice took the team to the NCAA tournament Final Four in 1975 and 1976 and posted a two-year record of 45–7 (.865 winning percentage).

The Ohio State University (1974–1976)

In 1974, he was hired as the head men's volleyball coach at Ohio State University.

He guided the Buckeyes to the co-championships of the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA), and to a third-place finish in both the 1975 and 1976 NCAA National Championships.

In both 1975 and 1976, Liskevych was selected as the MIVA Coach of the Year.

Accomplishments at Ohio State:

In the fall of 1976 he switched to the women's collegiate game and began his coaching career at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.

He was there for nine seasons (1976–1985) and accumulated a record of 267–85 (.759) as University of the Pacific finished top five in the nation six of his nine years.

While at Pacific (UOP), Liskevych was an assistant professor in the Physical Education and Recreation Department (1976–1981), was an assistant athletic director, supervising the women's programs and overseeing athletic marketing – 1982–1984.

In 1976, Liskevych completed his Ph.D. at Ohio State University in Physical Education – with emphases in international sport and sports psychology.

University of the Pacific (1976–1984)

In the summer of 1976, Liskevych left Ohio State for Stockton, California, where he made the switch to women's collegiate volleyball, becoming the head coach at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.

At the time of Liskevych's arrival, UOP's volleyball program was a Division III one-year-old program that was at an intramural level competitively and had a combined scholarship/operating budget of less than $3,500.

In his nine seasons at UOP, Liskevych coached the team to six conference titles, and finished in the top five in the country in Division I (AIAW – 1979–1980 and NCAA – 1981–1984).

Liskevych was recognized as the conference coach of the year on five occasions.

Off the court during that time Liskevych started the first national Top Ten and Top Twenty Poll, created and developed the premier women's collegiate four team volleyball tournament the Wendy's Classic (1979–1984) and co-founded the Collegiate Volleyball Coaches Association (CVCA) in 1981, which is now the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) and, as of 2009, had over 5,000 members.

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Accomplishments at University of the Pacific:

After his National Team career Liskevych worked in the business world as the president of Paragon Marketing (1997–2000), co-founder, vice president and president of ARK Digital Technologies (1998–2003), then as the co-founder and president of Total Sports Inc. (2003–2005).

In 2005 he made his return to coaching volleyball as the head women's volleyball coach at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon.

He coached for eleven years, retiring in August 2016.