Stephanie Zielinski is in her third season as an assistant coach with the FGCU volleyball program after joining the staff in January 2018. She has helped guide the Eagles to a 54-12 record, a pair of ASUN regular season titles and a second-round appearance in the NCAA Tournament. In doing so, she earned a spot on the AVCA's Thirty Under 30 list in the summer of 2020.
This past season, Zielinski helped FGCU compiled a 27-5 record, including a 14-2 ASUN regular season record, which resulted in a second-consecutive title. The team advanced to the ASUN tournament championship before falling in a five-set heartbreaker to Kennesaw State.
In her first season, Zielinski was an integral part of a staff that led the Green and Blue to heights it hasn’t seen before, as the Eagles went 27-7 overall and claimed the program’s first ASUN regular season championship since 2012 behind a 15-1 conference slate. In the postseason, she helped guide the squad to a thrilling five-set win over Kennesaw State on the road to claim the program’s first-ever ASUN tournament championship. In a first-round matchup against No. 13 UCF on the road, FGCU captured its first NCAA Tournament victory and first win over a ranked opponent in the Division-I era. Along the way, Zielinski helped lead the Eagles achieve a Division-I era record 16-match winning streak and tie the era’s single-season wins record with 27.
PRIOR TO FGCU
The Fort Lauderdale native, who spent the 2017 season as an assistant coach at Middle Tennessee, was an assistant coach at Davidson in 2016. While there, she helped lead the Wildcats to their first Atlantic 10 Conference tournament appearance in program history, and she coached Mikayla Derochie, a setter who went on to play professionally for Afturelding in Iceland.
Prior to Davidson, Zielinski spent the 2015 season as a volunteer assistant coach at Wake Forest. With the Demon Deacons, the defensive minded coach was responsible for developing and executing defensive scouting reports, while also working closely with setters and servers.
Prior to getting into collegiate coaching, Zielinski signed with Volley Toggenburg in Wattwil, Switzerland. As the starting setter for the team, she was named the best player of the match eight times during the 2013-14 season. While there, she also organized and executed practices for the U-11 team in weekend tournaments, and she worked with youth players ages 8-15 on specific skills. All of this was done while speaking German.
Zielinski served as a club coach from 2010-12 for Atlantic Valley Volleyball Club (AVVC), while helping at numerous camps in Fort Lauderdale and New York.
A former student-athlete at Rutgers, Zielinski started four seasons with the Scarlet Knights volleyball program. She finished her career with 4,255 assists, including 1,342 as a senior in 2012, both of which are second all-time in Rutgers' program history. She also ended her career with 1,129 digs, which is fifth all-time at Rutgers, and with a mark of 11.28 assists per set, good for second all-time in Big East history.
In all four of her collegiate seasons, Zielinski led the Scarlet Knights in assists. As a junior, she led the team with 34 service aces and was second on the team in total blocks with 70. That followed a sophomore campaign in which she also led the team in digs with 272.
In January 2013, she was named RU’s New Jersey Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (NJAIAW) Woman of the Year. During her career at the college, she was a member of the Student Athletic Advisory Council (SAAC) and was named to the Executive Committee in spring 2012. She was also the recipient of the Rutgers Leadership award for athletics, academics and service.
PERSONAL
Zielinski graduated from Rutgers in May 2013 with a degree in psychology and a minor in linguistics, and she earned a masters in sports administration from Arkansas State in August 2020. Her sister, Mackenzie, was a setter with the Miami (OH) RedHawks from 2014-18, and her brother, Zachary, is one of her biggest inspirations. Both of her parents were student-athletes at Ithaca College where her father, Ron, played basketball and her mother, Lisa, played tennis. Her mother currently serves as the head volleyball coach at St. Thomas Aquinas, where the Raiders have captured four state championships over the past six years.
UPDATED: 4/1/2020
