HUNTINGDON, Pa. – Former longtime Juniata College women’s volleyball coach and athletic director Larry Bock, who took a fledgling program and built it into a collegiate dynasty, will be inducted into the Juniata College Sports Hall of Fame and recognized for his many coaching achievements at Juniata during a ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012.
The ceremony will take place in conjunction with the Juniata men’s volleyball match against George Mason University scheduled for 7:00 p.m. on February 4, during a break between the second and third sets.
Bock will be the lone inductee into the Juniata College Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2012. As a tribute to his accomplishments, a banner recognizing his overall record as Juniata’s men’s and women’s volleyball coach will be positioned among the national championship banners for Juniata women’s volleyball in rafters of the Kennedy Sports + Recreation Center.
Bock, the only head coach in the history of Juniata women’s volleyball prior to his resignation last January to accept the head coaching position at the United States Naval Academy, guided the Eagles for 34 seasons. He posted a record of 1,252 wins against 192 losses during that span, a .867 winning percentage, becoming the winningest coach in collegiate women’s volleyball history in the process.
Juniata women’s volleyball competed in every NCAA Division III Women’s Volleyball Championship during Bock’s tenure as head coach, winning national championships in 2004 and 2006. The Eagles reached the national semifinals 25 times, and appeared in nine national championship matches.
Bock also founded the Juniata men’s volleyball program in 1990, coaching the squad for its first six seasons. He stepped down from his men’s volleyball coaching responsibilities in 1995, moving into the role of Juniata’s athletic director following the retirement of Bill Berrier – a capacity in which he would serve for the next 15 years.
Over his combined 40 seasons on the bench coaching Juniata men’s and women’s volleyball, Bock posted an overall record of 1,352–283–4. An eight-time honoree as national coach of the year and a member of the American Volleyball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, Bock coached 36 All-Americans, three AVCA National Players of the Year, five Academic All-Americans including two Academic All-Americans of the Year, and three NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship recipients.
Bock’s coaching honors include:
- Five-time American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Division III National Coach of the Year;
- Three-time Volleyball Monthly/ASICS Division III National Coach of the Year;
- Nine-time AVCA Division III Regional Coach of the Year;
- Member of the inaugural class of the AVCA Hall of Fame (2003);
- Co-head coach of the NCAA’s Silver Anniversary Division III Women’s Volleyball Team (2006);
- Recipient of the AVCA Founders Award (2000) for service to the sport;
- Recipient of the USA Volleyball Trailblazer Award (2006) and selected as recipient of the USA Volleyball All-Time Great Coaches Award, Contemporary Division (2009); and
- National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) Division III Athletic Director of the Year (2005).
Bock, a 1971 graduate of Penn State, and his wife, Lyn, are the parents of two grown daughters: Anne, a 1998 graduate of Juniata College, and Laura, a 2009 graduate of Chatham University.
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