Coaches

Coaching Staff

Brian Kim

Brian is one of the founders of Unified Volleyball. This season will be Brian’s 15th year as a coach for AAU / USAV volleyball. During his high school coaching career, he was the head varsity coach at Oxford High School from 2017-2021 and previously Bishop Foley High School from 2010-2013. In his four seasons at Oxford…
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Jason Gambone

Jason is one of the founders of Unified Volleyball. He is a former collegiate club athlete with an extensive background in coaching club and high school. He has coached countless athletes who have continued their career at the collegiate level. He has been coaching at the National Level for Club the past 24 years and…
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Samantha Aliah Kim

By day, Sam works full-time as a Scent Detection Dog Handler Supervisor, hunting bed bugs with the help of her dog, Vernor.  By night, Sam is a dedicated volleyball coach, and has coached AAU/USAV club teams for over 11 years.  She most recently served as the Varsity Assistant coach at Oxford HS for four years…
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Heather Gambone

Heather graduated from Walled Lake Central in 2001, playing twice in the State Semifinals. She played two years at Western Michigan and three years at Oakland University. At Oakland she set records in blocking and kills for both a single season and for her career. Heather has coached for 16 years at multiple levels and…
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Rick Wootten-Smith

Rick is our Director of Programming, 17-1 Head Coach and an Assistant Coach at Oakland University. Rick grew up in Florida & Michigan, but has also lived in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. He started playing volleyball in college at the University of Exeter in England. In his senior year, he captained his program…
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Danielle Partyka

Danielle has been with Unified since the beginning, coaching at both the national and national select level. Most recently, she has been coaching national teams at the 15s and 16s levels. Danielle was a four-year Varsity starter at Bishop Foley and played at the AAU National Level. During her high school career, Danielle received the…
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Laura Kragh

Laura was a three year Varsity volleyball and four year Varsity basketball player, leading Seaholm to a district title in her senior year. She received an athletic scholarship to Schoolcraft college and led her team to a 7th place finish in NJCAA. Laura has coached club volleyball over the past 12 years and was the…
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Amanda Swann

Amanda was a four-year varsity starter at Rochester High School and played AAU volleyball growing up.  She earned an athletic scholarship to the University of Minnesota, Crookston to play volleyball. While in Minnesota, she completed her Bachelors of Health Science degree. After finishing her bachelor’s degree, she moved to Florida to pursue her Doctorate of…
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Jen Bunting

2022 will be Jens 24th year of coaching at all different levels. This year will be her 2nd year coaching at Unified. She has coached at the JV and Varsity levels at John Glenn High School and Oxford High School. She has coached club ball at the State, and National level now for 24 years…
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Lawrence Patton

Lawrence picked up playing volleyball as a sophomore in college while attending Oakland Community College. Lawrence started playing volleyball in the sand at On The Dunes, which eventually led him to be a part of the inaugural season for Men’s Volleyball for Lawrence Technological University. At LTU, he was a 4 year starter at every…
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Maria Famularo

Maria has been with us since the first year Unified officially became a club. She started to play with us when she was 15 and continued to play for us for the rest of her club career. She graduated from Notre Dame Preparatory in 2019, where her team won the State Championship in 2017 and…
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Kori Varney

Kori played four years of Division I volleyball as the Libero for Florida Atlantic University. Before that, Kori played varsity volleyball at Lake Orion High School and earned All-State honors. Volleyball has been in her life for as long as she remembers. Recently, Kori was the coach of the 7th grade volleyball team at Scripps…
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Kelly Darcy

Kelly is a Grand Valley State University alumna currently working as a digital marketing specialist in Troy. She played volleyball competitively for 9 years, primarily as a setter but for club volleyball she played everything from a middle to libero. Kelly played high school ball for Notre Dame Prep and coached volleyball for 3 years…
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Megan Gignac

Megan was a four-year varsity volleyball player at Bishop Foley and played AAU volleyball as well. During her high school career, Megan received All Catholic and All Region honors.  She played at Albion College for one year before focusing on her career path in nursing.  Megan has been the varsity volleyball coach at Bishop Foley…
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Cori Hazen

Cori grew up in Southern California and was a 3 year varsity volleyball player and played club volleyball with Cal Juniors for 6 years as a defensive specialist. She then started all 4 years at Austin Peay State University in the Ohio Valley Conference, first as an outside hitter and then back to defensive specialist.…
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Colleen Szakacs

Colleen was a 3 year varsity player at Bishop Foley where she earned all league and all region honors. She was also a 4 year varsity basketball and softball player at Foley, earning all league, all Catholic, all region, and all state honors. She received an athletic and academic scholarship to Concordia University where she…
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Christina Wilk

Christina is excited to share her passion, knowledge, and personal experiences, all while continuing her growth as a coach. She coached freshman volleyball at Seaholm High School for two years and just finished her second year as JV coach at Brandon High School. She keeps volleyball a priority in her life by competing on adult…
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Phoebe Szakacs

Phoebe graduated from Bishop Foley in 2016 where she played volleyball and softball for all four years. Recently, she is finished up her last year at Wayne State University for Sociology and Criminal Justice and graduated in May 2020. She currently coaches the JV Volleyball team at Bishop Foley and continues to play volleyball and…
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Samm Gray

Samm currently coaches the Freshman team at Notre Dame Prep, this will be her first year with their program. Previously she was at Lutheran North HS for 3 years as the JV coach, and she has coached Freshman volleyball at Henry Ford II HS as well. Samm has coached 16u National Select Club for 5…
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Taylor Andrus

Taylor is excited to share her knowledge, love and passion for the game of volleyball. She played 3 years of Varsity at Troy High and continued to play collegiate club volleyball at Grand Valley. She graduated with an Exercise Science Degree and is currently a Health Fitness Coach. She is currently the Freshman Volleyball Coach…
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Kennedy Dolmage

Kennedy currently plays for Oakland University as a DS/Libero.  She played club volleyball for 10 years as a libero and was a four year varsity starter at Lutheran High North where she played libero and all around outside hitter. She has been coaching various teams and camps for 4 years at all different age groups.…
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Haley Brown

Haley had played volleyball for 12 years and has coached in various camps and leagues since 2015. She was a 4-year OH/DS starter and captain at Springboro High School out of the Cincinnati, OH area, where she holds records in kills, aces, and digs and received conference, district, and state honors.  She is currently a…
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AnnaBelle Tomei

AnnaBelle is a senior setter at Oakland University, and is expecting to graduate with a Marketing degree with a minor in Finance in 2023! She has been coaching volleyball for the past 6 years. AnnaBelle played for Sports Performance Volleyball Club for 8 years, and has been coaching since 2019.  In 2021, AnnaBelle coached Sports…
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Abby Wakefield

Abby is currently the assistant coach for Eisenhower High School’s freshman volleyball team. She played for 5 years for club and throughout school mostly as a Libero and occasionally a back-up setter. Abby is a senior at Oakland University studying Graphic Design and Italian language. When she isn’t doing homework or telling her girls to…
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Anita Prys

Anita played three years on Bishop Foley CHS’s Varsity volleyball team, and two years for Albion College’s Varsity team.  She decided to return to her high school in 2010 as Brian Kim’s Varsity Assistant Coach for two years, while finishing her undergraduate degree at Oakland University.  In 2012, she moved into the head JV Coach…
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Madison Close

Volleyball has always been a passion of Madison’s, and since she was young she knew she wanted to be a volleyball coach. During her first year of coaching, she was offered a position coaching both the Freshman team at Holly High School and the 8th Grade team at Holly Middle School. Madison is the Varisty…
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Ashley Moon

Ashley is starting her third year coaching, and this will be her second year with Unified. She was the Freshman and assistant Varsity volleyball coach at Regina High School, and is currently the JV coach at Seaholm High School. Ashley recently received her Master’s in Math and is currently teaching AP Calculus AB at Groves…
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Susan Rohles

Susan Rohles has been with Unified Volleyball from the start, and has coached both National and National Select teams. She previously coached HS Varsity at Sacred Heart and at Regina, and JV at Seaholm. She now coaches middle school volleyball at Guardian Angels, where she also teaches English and Spanish. She played Libero at Marian…
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Annie Reichenbach

Annie was a four-year starting Varsity setter at Bishop Foley set the school record for assists. During her high school career, Annie received All-League, All-Catholic honors and All-Region honors for Class C.  Annie recently finished nursing school, and works in the ER at Beaumont Hospital.  Last but not least, Annie enjoys rooting on the Spartans during their…
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Tamara McNeil

Tamara was a 3 year varsity player for Anchor Bay High School before continuing her career at Central Michigan University where she helped the team win the MAC West in 2003.  Tamara has an 11 year old daughter, Taryn, with her husband Todd. She also coaches the 5th/6th grade teams at her daughters school, St.…
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Maddy Weiss

Maddy graduated from Oxford High School in 2020 where she was a 4 year varsity starter playing right side hitter, all around outside hitter, all around setter, and libero. Throughout her high school career, she won MVP 2 times and was named team captain for three years. During club, Maddy competed at high levels since…
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Molly Miller

Molly graduated Oxford High School in 2021 where she was a 3 year varsity starter as an Outside Hitter. Throughout her senior season she was named captain along with MVP. During club, Molly competed at a high level being on a national team at Unified for 3 years. During high school and currently, Molly works…
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Lauren Dolmage

In 2022-2023, Lauren is a former collegiate D1 athlete at Oakland University and she is entering her 7th season coaching club and high school volleyball. In 2021, as the head coach of Oakland Christian high school, she led the team to a district title! Lauren has coached various top National teams at Legacy and in…
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Joshua Eckert

Originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, Josh has coached volleyball over 8 years at various competitive levels. Josh started as an Assistant Coach at Antilles High School when I was a senior in High School. After he moved to Michigan, he served as the Henry Ford College Varsity Volleyball Assistant Coach and Walled Lake Western…
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Megan Lopez

This will be Megan’s first year coaching at Unified Volleyball and she is very excited! She played 5 years of school and club as a libero and DS. She then went on to get her degree in Advertising at Michigan State. She now works for a digital marketing company based out of Detroit. In her…
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Jonathan Barnes

Jonathan took up coaching volleyball at age 17 as a sophomore in High School and continued coaching throughout college.  Jonathan grew up on the volleyball court, watching his father coach for over 30 years at Hartland. Jonathan’s coaching experience started at several years with Hartland Middle School and Hartland Varsity teams as well as 2…
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Patti Cesarini

Patti is currently an outside hitter for the Oakland University Volleyball Team. Prior to Oakland University, she played for 1st Alliance Volleyball Club in the Chicagoland area for seven years. She has coached many camps and clinics, and this is her first year coaching a team for Unified. She is excited to share her love…
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Lyse Bates

Lyse currently plays for Oakland University as a DS/Libero. She has played club volleyball previously for 8 seasons for Dead Frog Volleyball Club. In high school, Lyse was a four year varsity starter at Portage North High School where was a DS/Libero.
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