This will be her first coaching job as well as her first post-college job after finishing the Beach Volleyball season at South Carolina.
It looks like new Marquette volleyball head coach Tom Mendoza has made one more adjustment to his coaching staff heading into his first season on the job. On Tuesday, Mendoza announced the hiring of Riley Whitesides as an assistant coach.
Let’s go to the Marquette press release to run down Whitesides’ history as a player:
Whitesides played five seasons for Mendoza at the University of South Carolina and was a First Team All-Southeastern Conference and AVCA All-Region selection as a graduate student in the fall of 2024. The native of Greenville, South Carolina averaged 4.47 kills per set as a grad student to rank among the top-20 nationally while hitting .241.
Whitesides ended her indoor career fifth in program history in kills (1,452), second in service aces (100), ninth in digs (920) and fourth in points scored (1,645.0).
Most recently, Whitesides completed her third season playing beach volleyball in Columbia with an 18-13 record this spring after a 20-15 mark during 2024. Overall, she boasts a career 38-27 record in dual action on the sand.
If you can do math there, then you’ve figured out that Whitesides was a part of Mendoza’s last team at South Carolina and just finished up her playing career for the Gamecocks as a beach volleyball player. She finished her degree in psychology last spring and tacked on an MBA this year thanks to the extra year of eligibility since she arrived in Columbia in the fall of 2020.
That makes this Whitesides’ first coaching job and her first post-college job at the same time. I suspect that part of her job will be helping to bridge the gap between coaching staff and players since she spent the last five years playing for Mendoza and assistant coach Ethan Pheister. She’s got the experience of being a player for these coaches and can help MU’s current players figure out exactly what Mendoza is asking of them and provide some insight as to what his tactics are as well.
Speaking of Mendoza, here’s his comments on his new employee, who replaces LJ Marx on the coaching staff:
“I’ve known Riley for a long time and we could not be adding a better person to the program and mentor for our student-athletes.” Mendoza said. “She’s successful because of the work she puts in and the relationships she builds. I am excited to work with her and the impact she will have on Marquette Volleyball.”
Oh, one last thing: As I was checking to confirm that this meant that LJ Marx was no longer with the program, I discovered that Marquette has officially flipped the roster page over to 2025. That changeover means we can confirm that freshmen Avery Helms, Emma Parks, and Annika Kowalski along with transfer Elena Radeff are still on the roster for this fall after they committed to play while Ryan Theis was still the head coach before leaving to take the Florida job. It also means that Marquette’s roster stands at 17 women, one under the new NCAA roster limit of 18 following the completion and approval of the House settlement.
Marquette is set to start the 2025 season on the road against Hawaii in their first match at the Rainbow Wahine Classic in Honolulu. That’s scheduled for Friday, August 29th, following an exhibition match at Northwestern on August 22nd.
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