Ryan Vorderer - Volleyball Coach - Grand Canyon University Athletics

Photo by: Jayden Todd

Ryan Vorderer

Title:
Assistant Coach
Email:
ryan.vorderer@gcu.edu

Ryan Vorderer will enter his third season as Grand Canyon's women's volleyball assistant coach in the 2026 season.

Vorderer was named to the AVCA Thirty Under 30, an honor that recognizes the top young coaches in the game.

In 2025, the Lopes' reached the Quarterfinal of the Mountain West Championship in their inaugural season in the conference. The Lopes delivered one of the nation’s top blocking units. GCU set its Division I era record with 515 block assists and recorded the second-most total blocks in program history (312), ranking 17th nationally in total blocks and 21st in blocks per set (2.67).

In 2024, the Lopes made impressive strides, landing the first consecutive 20-win seasons in the D1-era along with single-season records in both blocks (316) and service aces (197). The Lopes boasted the most honorees (five) of any WAC team this postseason and the most for GCU since the Lopes also had five honorees when the 2020 season was held in the spring of 2021.

Vorderer joined the Lopes in March of 2024, ahead of their spring season.

For the previous 2 seasons Vorderer served as UTSA's assistant coach. Vorderer’s primary responsibilities included working with attackers and defense where he was instrumental in developing the team into a NCAA Top 50 team for blocks per set. Over his two years, UTSA saw a 7-win improvement as well as 8 different players earn conference awards.

Prior to UTSA, Vorderer had a two-year tenure as a graduate assistant at Nebraska, where he assisted in creating weekly scouting reports and recruiting responsibilities, analyzed in-game opponent offense and facilitated practice drills. During his time, Nebraska finished as National Runner-Ups in 2021 and had an Elite 8 appearance in 2020.

In 2018, Vorderer spent the year living in England completing his master's degree and playing volleyball for the University of Essex and Tendring Volleyball Club. The university team was able to win the National Championship, as he played a prominent role starting every game at outside hitter. Tendring Volleyball earned a promotion to England's Super League, which is the top division for club teams in England. Vorderer also assisted with the Tendring women's team for the season as they won the Super League Championship Title for the first time in club history.

Prior to his coaching career, Vorderer played volleyball at Lindenwood University, where he was a four-year starter at libero from 2015-18 and earned All-MIVA honors. He led the MIVA and was third in the nation in digs per set in 2018. Vorderer also set the program record for digs at Lindenwood.

Vorderer earned a bachelor's in finance from Lindenwood in 2018 and a master's degree in marketing management from Essex in 2019.