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The Northern Illinois University volleyball program has a new leader. Sondra Parys, an Illinois local, was introduced as head coach on December 15, 2022, by Vice President and Director of Athletics and Recreation Sean T. Frazier.

The seventh head coach in program history hopes to guide NIU back to a MAC Championship and NCAA Tournament berth, something the team hasn’t accomplished since 2016.

Parys spent the past five seasons (2018-2022) as an assistant coach at Loyola University Chicago, helping guide the Ramblers to five consecutive winning seasons, including back-to-back regular season league championships in 2021 and 2022.

Most recently, the Ramblers won their first Atlantic 10 (A10) Volleyball Tournament Championship, capping a historic season in which the team won 25 matches, the most in 20 years.

With the A10 automatic bid in hand, the program made its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2005.

A proven recruiter, in 2019, Parys was one of 11 NCAA Division I women’s volleyball coaches to be honored with the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s (AVCA) Thirty Under 30 Award, which recognizes up-and-coming stars in the profession.

Parys was assistant coach at Division II Queens University of Charlotte (N.C.) for two years (2016-2017) prior to her time at Loyola Chicago. She helped Queens reach back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, including a trip to the Sweet 16 in 2016, as well as the first South Atlantic Conference (SAC) Championship in program history.

Parys began her collegiate coaching career as an assistant at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, from 2014-2015.

It’s a full-circle moment for the Parys family as her father, Joe, was on the 1981-82 NIU Hall of Fame men’s basketball team and her mother, Lori, was a cheerleader at NIU.

Parys was a volleyball student-athlete at the University of Toledo from 2009-12 where she earned a spot on the MAC All-Freshman Team and led the Rockets in kills her junior year. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from Toledo and a master’s degree in college counseling from The Citadel.