PROVO, Utah - In just his second season as the head coach of the nationally-ranked BYU men's volleyball team, head coach Chris McGown has been named the 2013 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Coach of the Year.
Coach McGown is the third coach at BYU to earn Coach of the Year honors from the MPSF, following his father Carl McGown's winning in 1999 and 2001, and Tom Peterson winning co-coach honors in 2003.
Backed by a 25-4 record and an MPSF Championship for the first time since 2004, the Cougars also return to the NCAA tournament for the first time since that same year. The Cougars won the conference title on April 27 over Long Beach State in the Smith Fieldhouse before 4,190 fans, after defeating Hawaii and UCLA in the MPSF Quarterfinals and Semifinals.
With an NCAA semifinal victory this Thursday, BYU’s 26th win will be the third most all-time for the program and most since ’04, its last national title season. While only the ‘99 and ‘04 Cougar squads hold a higher MPSF win percentage in program history, no other MPSF team since the inaugural season of the conference in 1993 has clinched the tournament’s overall No. 1 seed as quickly as the 2013 Cougars did on March 30. Furthermore, BYU has been ranked as the nation’s No. 1 team in 11 of the 16 AVCA Coaches’ Polls, and in all but one week, in the top-two.
McGown’s coach of the year honor results in a Cougar sweep of the three major MPSF individual awards, as prior to the postseason tournament junior outside hitter Taylor Sander was named player of the year and opposite Ben Patch freshman of the year. This marks the first time since 2008 that each major award went to the same team. In addition, BYU had seven other honors on the all-conference lists, including three first-team selections.