Nicole Wentz

Coach Wentz has been professionally coaching in the sport of volleyball for 27 years. She has coached everything from middle school/junior high to top​ 25 ranked Division 1 collegiate teams. Coach Wentz has won or competed for a championship at every school she has ever coached. She has coached several collegiate NCAA All-Americans, and her teams have ranked in the top 25 nationally. Coach Wentz focuses on being a very technical and tactical coach and loves sharing her passion for the game with her athletes. This is how Coach Wentz defines a successful team, not the wins and losses, though the wins are nice! Coach Wentz desires that an athlete wants to continue to play, develops a pure love of the game, and knows that they can accomplish anything they work hard towards.

Nicole Wentz was hired as the Cortland women’s volleyball head coach in June 2017 and coached Cortland for the 2017 and 2018 seasons before resigning to spend more time with her family and ending her two-hour commute.

She served as the head women’s volleyball coach at Keystone College for five seasons from 2012-2016 and two years from 2003-2004. Wentz led the Giants to a 21-10 overall record and a 10-1 record in the Colonial States Athletic Conference (CSAC) during the 2016 season. Her squad made its second straight conference playoff appearance for the first time in school history in 2016 and advanced to the title match before falling in five sets to the tournament’s top seed.

In 2015, Wentz guided Keystone to a 21-7 overall mark and a 9-2 league record and was named CSAC Coach of the Year. Over her past five years at Keystone College, Coach Wentz coached 11 all-conference players, with her players earning three all-region awards and two All-America honors.

In addition, Wentz was selected in 2013 as a member of the NCAA Division III women’s volleyball top 25 ranking committee. Additionally, Coach Wentz served as chair of the AVCA Mid-Atlantic All-Region Team committee and was a committee member for the Division 3 All-America Team selection.

Before her first stint at Keystone College in 2003-2004, Wentz was the head coach at Franklin & Marshall College, where she led the Diplomats to 28 wins, a conference title, and a national ranking in 2002 and 22 victories in the 2001 season, and two ECAC semi-final post-season appearances. Coach Wentz tallied seven athletes that were recognized on the All-Centennial Conference team during her tenure.  Additionally, Coach Wentz mentored an AVCA All-Region athlete and a 2001 Co-Sida Academic All-American and NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship recipient.

She started her collegiate coaching career as an assistant at Division 1 Lehigh University in 1998. She was a graduate assistant coach at Division 1 Temple University in 1999 for an Owls’ squad that won its third straight Atlantic 10 title and competed in the NCAA playoffs, and in 2002 promoted to the Owls’ second assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. She earned a master’s degree in athletic administration from Temple. The 2002 Temple volleyball team that advanced to the sweet sixteen in an upset of top-seed Penn State included five starters that Coach Wentz recruited.

Wentz is an alumna of Muhlenberg College (Pa.) She earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration and played four seasons on Muhlenberg’s volleyball team during a stretch of a school-record five consecutive 20-plus win seasons.

Coach Wentz has lived in Northeastern Pennsylvania since 2003 but is originally from Long Island, NY. Her Carle Place High School Volleyball team reached the New York State section finals in her senior year (as the lone senior), the furthest the program had achieved up until that point. Two years later, her high school team won the state championship in 1996 and 1998. Several of her teammates played Division 1, Division 2, and elite Division 3 collegiate volleyball. Coach Wentz played travel volleyball for the elite Long Island Big Apple Volleyball Club in 1994 and competed in club tournaments all over the country. Coach Wentz was ranked one of the top 50 volleyball athletes on Long Island in 1993 and 1994.

Throughout her coaching career, Coach Wentz has had the privilege to work with coaches of the USA Volleyball National Team, Olympians, All-World Team international athletes, and several former athletes on their country’s national team. Coach Wentz has a high level of technical knowledge, and her teaching style allows players to see the correction they need to make quickly without much coaching input. Coach Wentz is CAP 1 certified and Gold Medal Squared trained. Several of Coach Wentz’s former athletes have become collegiate volleyball coaches, including coaching at Misericordia, Cedar Crest, Carthage, Keystone, and United States Military Academy in West Point, NY.

Coach Wentz and her husband Jeremy have four children- Jackson, Brielle, and twins Colton and Caleena. Brielle and Jackson are avid volleyball players, and Calee and Colton are just starting. Coach Wentz has plans to build a gymnasium shortly for the Endless Momentum Volleyball teams.