Ray Gooden Position: Head Coach Experience: Seventh Year Alma Mater: Ohio State, 1994

Seventh-year NIU head coach Ray Gooden enters the 2008 season fresh off a great European summer experience and ready to lead his Huskies into another challenging season.

In July, Gooden co-coached Bring It!, a team of some of the best 18-21 year-old players in the United States, in the Global Challenge 2008 in Pula, Croatia. Facing some of the best players and coaches in the world allowed Gooden to broaden his horizon and stay current with coaching techniques. The experience also helped Gooden get a head start on the NIU season.

Besides coaching with and against some of the best talent in the world, Gooden has also coached some of the best student-athletes to ever set foot on Northern Illinois University's Victor E. Court.

Two of those players from Gooden's first recruiting class, Kate McCullagh and Gina Guide, were instrumental in helping the Huskies to the 2006 Mid-American Conference West Division title, its first since 2001. Gooden reaped the benefits of the Huskies' strong 2006 showing, as he was selected as the 2006 Co-MAC Coach of the Year, along with Ohio's Geoff Carlston.

McCullagh was the 2006 Mid-American Conference Player of the Year and AVCA Honorable Mention All-American, while Guide accumulated an astounding 2,249 digs in her career. During the season, McCullagh broke the school record for career kills (1,936), set by former teammate Tera Lobdell (2001-04).

Lobdell also thrived under Gooden's tutelage, as she set both the NIU and MAC single-season and career standards for kills with 713 (2004). As a senior, Lobdell was named to the 2004 All-MAC first team.

While Guide, Lobdell and McCullagh have all ended their collegiate careers, Gooden has restocked his 2008 squad with top-notch talent, looking to recapture the MAC West Division title and claim their first NCAA berth since 2001.

Gooden has spent 13 seasons coaching collegiate volleyball at different levels including five seasons as women's associate head coach and four years as men's assistant coach at Loyola University-Chicago and two campaigns as the head men's coach and assistant women's volleyball coach at Thomas More College in Crestview Hills, Ky.

With Gooden serving as Liz Nelson's right-hand man and recruiting coordinator at Loyola, the Ramblers posted four consecutive 20-win seasons and back-to-back Horizon League (then-Midwestern Collegiate Conference) titles. LUC finished the 2001 season 20-9 overall and 13-1 in the Horizon before falling in the finals of the league tournament. That followed the 1999 and 2000 campaigns, which saw the Ramblers go 24-10 and 22-9, respectively, with MCC Tournament titles and subsequent berths in the NCAA Tournament.

In addition to his efforts with the Loyola women's squad, Gooden was an assistant to Gordon Mayforth's Rambler men's team. Serving as the blocking coordinator while coaching the team's middle hitters, Gooden helped Loyola senior Dan Haas post a .425 career hitting percentage, best in school history. The LU men finished the 2001 season ranked 14th in the country according to the final USA Today / AVCA Coaches Top 15 Poll with a 19-10 overall mark, and a 10-6 ledger in the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association.

Before that 2001 campaign, the Rambler men's team posted 16-12, 19-9, and 24-8 marks the previous three seasons.

Prior to his stint at Loyola, Gooden spent a season each at Chicago-area schools Lewis University and Northwestern University as an assistant coach. With Gooden serving as the top assistant, the 1997 Lewis men's squad finished 25-10 overall and ranked 10th nationally by USA Today / AVCA. In 1996 Gooden assisted the Wildcat program, where his responsibilities included setter training, scouting, and coordinating a volleyball-specific strength and conditioning program.

In addition to his time at the collegiate level, Gooden enhanced his résumé with coaching experience at the national level. Since the summer of 1995, the former Ohio State University standout has worked at all levels of the USA Junior National and Youth programs. In 1998, he served as an assistant coach for USA Volleyball's High Performance Camp where he trained 24 of the nation's top 16-and-under players at the Olympic Training facility. In 1999-2000, Gooden also had the opportunity to serve as an assistant coach for the USA Volleyball Men's Junior National Team while assisting with the USA men's program.

Gooden started his coaching career path at the age of 22 as one of the youngest intercollegiate men's head volleyball coaches in NCAA history. In April of 1994, Gooden developed the inaugural men's varsity volleyball team at Thomas More College. While at Thomas More, Gooden not only directed and led the men's program, but he also served as an assistant for the women's team that reached the NCAA Division III Regional Semifinals in 1995 and 1996.

As a player, Gooden earned two varsity volleyball letters at Ohio State and was named an All-Big Ten Conference club performer three times. An eight-time Prairie State Games competitor, he was named a three-time High School/Amateur Athletics Union Junior Olympic All-American and the 1989 Illinois High School Player of the Year out of Evanston High School.

At Ohio State University, Gooden earned a bachelor of arts degree in economics in September, 1994. Gooden is married to the former Stephanie Lynn Scarpelli and they have a one-year-old daughter, Gianna Ella.