Donald Shaw (born 1951) is a retired American

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

coach and player. Over a combined 27 years, he coached for the men and women's volleyball teams at

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

, winning NCAA titles with the women's team four times: in 1992, 1994, 1996, and 1997. Shaw was inducted into the

Stanford Athletics Hall of Fame The Stanford Cardinal are the athletic teams that represent Stanford University. As of June, 2022, Stanford's program has won 131 NCAA team championships. Stanford has won at least one NCAA team championship each academic year for 46 consecutive ...

in 2011. Shaw is considered to be one of the most successful volleyball coaches in

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

history, and his .863 winning percentage is the best in NCAA women's collegiate volleyball history.

Personal life

Shaw is from

Pacific Palisades, California Pacific Palisades is a neighborhood in the Westside Los Angeles, Westside region of Los Angeles, California, situated about west of Downtown Los Angeles. Pacific Palisades was formally founded in 1921 by a Chautauqua, Methodist organization, an ...

and he graduated from Palisades High School. In high school, he excelled in

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

, was a member of the 1969 LA City Basketball Champions and was selected by the

Kansas City Royals The Kansas City Royals are an American professional baseball team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Royals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team was founded as an expans ...

in the

1969 Major League Baseball draft The 1969 Major League Baseball (MLB) draft took place prior to the 1969 MLB season. The draft featured future Hall of Famers Bert Blyleven (pick 55) and Dave Winfield (pick 882). First round selections The following are the first round picks ...

. Shaw played basketball Santa Monica College from 1969-71 (where he was All-Conference both years and 1970-71 SMC Athlete of the Year) and at

Loyola Marymount Loyola Marymount University (LMU) is a private Jesuit and Marymount research university in Los Angeles, California. It is located on the west side of the city near Playa Vista. LMU is the parent school to Loyola Law School, which is located ...

at the forward position from 1971-73, and led the West Coast Athletic Conference in free throw percentage (85.3) in 1971-72. Shaw continued his basketball career playing in Europe and South America from 1973-74. Don Shaw was married to Carolyn Walker Shaw from 1988-2001. He received a bachelor's degree in sociology with an athletic coaching minor from UC Santa Barbara in 1977. Shaw has two children, both of whom went on to have successful volleyball careers. His son, James Shaw, is a member of the

United States men's national volleyball team The United States men's national volleyball team represents the country in international competitions and friendly matches. The team is governed by USA Volleyball. The team has won five Olympic medals, including three gold. History As the birth ...

and played volleyball at Stanford, where he was an AVCA First Team All-American. His daughter, Jordan Shaw, played volleyball for the USA A2 Junior National Team that won gold at the 2011 European Global Challenge and collegiately for St. Mary's, where she earned honorable mention All-America honors.

Playing career

Shaw was a member of the indoor U.S. National Team in 1979 and played professionally for the San Jose Diablos in 1979 and 1980. Shaw also played

beach volleyball Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two or more players on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side of the ...

, notably with fellow Hall of Fame player Karch Kiraly. They placed third in the ‘78 World Championship volleyball tournament. Shaw earned the highest beach rating possible (AAA) and competed in the World Beach Championships.

Coaching career

After beginning his career as an assistant coach at UC Santa Barbara, Shaw began his Stanford coaching career in 1980 when he was an assistant on both the men and women's teams until 1983, under

Fred Sturm Frederick I. Sturm (March 21, 1951 – August 24, 2014) was a jazz composer, arranger and teacher. Sturm studied at Lawrence University, the University of North Texas College of Music, and the Eastman School of Music. He played trombone and perfor ...

. He head coached both the men’s and women’s teams at Stanford for a combined 27 years starting in 1984. In 1984 and 1985, he was the co-head coach with Sturm for both programs before becoming the solo head coach for the women's team from 1986 to 1999. Shaw took a leave of absence in 2000 and in 2001, he announced that he was leaving the women's program to take over the men's team for the second time, a position he would hold until retiring from collegiate coaching in 2006. Shaw is regarded as one of the best NCAA volleyball coaches of all time as he shaped the Stanford women's team into a national powerhouse. Shaw led the team to its first NCAA championship in 1992 and through present-day, Stanford is the record holder for most NCAA championships amongst Division I programs (9).

Stanford (women)

Shaw was the co-head coach with Sturm in the 1984 and 1985 seasons with the women's volleyball team, before being the sole head coach beginning in 1986. In his sixteen seasons with the Stanford women's volleyball team, Shaw had a record of 440-70. He led Stanford to the NCAA Championship match eight times, winning the

NCAA national championships Listed below are the colleges or universities with the most NCAA Division I-sanctioned team championships, individual championships, and combined team and individual championships, as documented by information published on official NCAA websites. ...

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

, and

. In addition to four NCAA titles, he also led Stanford to 10 conference titles, including six

Pac-10 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...

Championships in a row from 1994-1999. Seven of his Stanford players have earned AVCA National Player of the Year honors, including

Kim Oden Kimberley Yvette "Kim" Oden (born May 6, 1964, in Birmingham, Alabama) is a former volleyball player and two-time Olympian who played on the United States women's national volleyball team. College Oden was a three-time All-American volleyball pl ...

Bev Oden,

Kristin Klein Kristin Klein Keefe ( Kristin Magdalen Klein; born March 20, 1970, in Santa Monica, California) is an American retired volleyball player who played as an outside hitter. She represented the United States national team at the 1996 Summer Olympics ...

, Cary Wendell and

Kerri Walsh Kerri Lee Walsh Jennings (born August 15, 1978) is an American professional beach volleyball player, three-time Olympic gold medalist, and a one-time Olympic bronze medalist. She is the beach volleyball leader in career victories as of 2016 hav ...

Stanford (men)

Shaw was the co-head coach with Sturm in the 1984 and 1985 seasons with the men's volleyball team and returned to coach from 2002-2006. Throughout all seasons, he holds a record of 122–128. Notable men's players that Shaw coached at Stanford was ‘88 Gold Medalist

Scott Fortune Scott Thomas Fortune (born January 23, 1966) is an American former volleyball player. He was an All-American at Stanford University and a three-time Olympian for the United States national team. He helped the United States win the gold medal at ...

who was the captain of the 1992 men's Olympic team, ‘88 Gold Medalist Jon Root and ‘08 Gold Medalist Kevin Hansen.

Other coaching works

Shaw served as an assistant coach for the gold medal-winning United States Men's Team at the 1982 National Sports Festival as well as the assistant for the U.S. Women's Team at the

1991 Pan American Games The 1991 Pan American Games were held in Havana, Cuba from August 2 to August 18, 1991. There were 4,519 athletes from 39 countries of the Pan American Sports Organization, PASO community, with events in 33 different sports. The main stadium was ...

Havana, Cuba Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

Head coaching record

External links

Beach Volleyball Database profile

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaw, Don 1951 births American volleyball coaches American men's volleyball players American men's beach volleyball players Living people People from Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles Stanford Cardinal men's volleyball coaches Stanford Cardinal women's volleyball coaches Loyola Marymount Lions men's basketball players Baseball players from Los Angeles University of California, Santa Barbara alumni