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Contact Coach Opperman: opperman@duq.edu
Steve Opperman, the most tenured women's coach at Duquesne University, enters his 12th season as head coach of the volleyball program. Named to the post in 1998, Opperman became the 12th head coach in program history. He came to Duquesne after seven seasons as head coach at Wright State, where he was second on the school's all-time victory list.
Opperman, a two time Atlantic 10 Co-Coach of the Year, needed only five years to become DU's all-time winningest coach.
Over his tenure, Opperman has seen his players voted to the Atlantic 10 All-Conference teams a total of 26 times. The Dukes have been represented on the A-10 All-Conference teams for 10 straight seasons.
In his 11 years on the Bluff, several season, team and individual records have been broken under Opperman's guidance, most recently 470 single-season kills by Amanda Haeg in 2006. Coming off an injury-riddled 2008 season, Opperman led the Dukes to a five-match improvement from 2007 - the third-best in the 35 years of Duquesne volleyball.
Under his leadership, Opperman always had his squads among the strongest academic teams on campus. In his 11 seasons at Duquesne, 10 student-athletes have been named to the A-10 Academic All-Conference team; four student-athletes have been named ESPN the Magazine Academic All-America and he has coached one A-10 Student-Athlete of the Year.
Opperman, has compiled a 265-296 (.472) in 18 seasons as a head coach.
In his first season as head coach at Wright State, he led the Raiders to the finals of the 1991 North Star Conference Championship. He accomplished the same feet two seasons later take WSU, now in the Midwestern Collegiate Conference, to the 1993 championship match. The Raiders received a berth in the National Invitational Volleyball Championship in both 1991 and 1993. In his seven years leading WSU, Opperman registered three 20-win seasons, including a personal-best 23 wins in 1993 and 1995.
Opperman started his collegiate coaching career in 1989 as an assistant coach at the University of Dayton. In his only season with the Flyers, they went 17-17 and made it to the semifinals of the Midwestern Collegiate Conference Championship.
The following season he took the assistant coach position at Wright State before assuming the role of head coach in 1991.
Opperman graduated from Ohio State in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in marketing. On the court, he was an outside hitter with the Buckeyes for the 1983-84 season leading them to a 28-11 overall record and a second place finish in the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association.
The New Bremen, Ohio native holds memberships in the American Volleyball Coaches and United States Volleyball Associations. He was a voting member of the CSTV/AVCA Top 25 poll from 1999 until 2006 and served as the Atlantic 10 representative to the AVCA Head Coaches Committee from 2000-2005. In 1996, he was a panel speaker at the Final Four Volleyball Convention.
Opperman's Career Coaching Record
| Overall | A-10 | |||||
Year |
Wins |
Loses |
Pct. |
Wins | Loses | Pct. |
2008 |
15 |
14 |
0.517 |
3 |
10 |
0.231 |
2007 |
10 |
19 |
0.345 |
2 |
11 |
0.154 |
2006 |
11 |
21 |
0.344 |
4 |
9 |
0.308 |
2005 |
15 |
13 |
0.536 |
5 |
8 |
0.385 |
2004 |
15 |
16 |
0.484 |
7 |
7 |
0.500 |
2003 |
13 |
17 |
0.433 |
6 |
8 |
0.429 |
2002 |
18 |
12 |
0.600 |
7 |
7 |
0.500 |
2001 |
16 |
10 |
0.615 |
8 |
8 |
0.500 |
2000 |
15 |
16 |
0.484 |
4 |
12 |
0.250 |
1999 |
10 |
22 |
0.313 |
4 |
14 |
0.222 |
1998 |
8 |
20 |
0.286 |
3 |
17 |
0.150 |
at Duquesne |
146 |
180 |
0.448 |
53 |
111 |
0.323 |
at Wright State |
119 |
116 |
0.506 |
- |
- |
- |
Career |
265 |
296 |
0.472 |
- |
- |
- |