In 2021, Jim Dietz enters his sixteenth season at the helm of the Lincoln Land volleyball program, compiling a 490-178 record, the winningest coach in LLCC history. Over the past fifteen seasons, the Loggers have been a Region Runner-up ten times and Region Champions five times (2012, 2015-2018) reaching the National Title Game twice (2015, 2016) with a Final Four (3rd Place) finish in 2017 and an Elite Eight appearance in 2018. The volleyball squad is the first in school history to qualify for a national tournament in four consecutive years. In the national poll, the team has finished in the NJCAA Top Twenty in eleven of the past twelve seasons, reaching as high as #4 in 2012 and 2015, #2 in 2016, #2 in 2017, and #3 in 2018.
Under Dietz’s tutelage, LLCC had its first all-American selection in 2010, and has had 25 more in the ten seasons since. Two players have been selected as AVCA all-Americans, and two alumni have moved on to become all-Americans at the four-year college level.
As a coach, Dietz has received multiple honors. He was named 2015 AVCA Midwest Coach of the Year for taking LLCC to the NJCAA National title game. In addition, he has been selected as Region XXIV Coach of the Year twice and District K Coach of the Year five times.
Dietz is a respected figure in central Illinois volleyball having built the St. Anthony High School program in Effingham, leading it to its first ever winning season, regional and sectional titles, first 30-win seasons (in any sport), as well as its first state-qualifying volleyball team, and remains the winningest coach in St. Anthony history (for all sports).
From 2014-2019, Dietz served as a USAV High Performance Coach, both as an evaluator for both the boys’ and girls’ programs and as a coach, working at national-level camps for Future-Selects in Las Vegas and New Orleans. Heavily involved in club volleyball, Dietz has coached all ages of teams and helped found two clubs, Crossroads Volleyball in Effingham and PAO-Capital Area Volleyball in Springfield. He has also contributed essays and writings to USAV along with presentations at various coaching clinics.
Before moving to Illinois, Dietz worked three years as an assistant at Ohio State (including the 1994 Big Ten and NCAA Final Four squad) and one year each with the Iowa State University and University of Illinois volleyball programs.
Dietz has twenty-five years of experience as an instructor and coach at the junior high, high school, and college levels. In 2013 he published his first coaching textbook titled The Human Side of Coaching with Championship Productions. His second book, Like Heck She Doesn’t Look Like a Volleyball Player, was released in 2017. Other works have been published by the AVCA and USA Volleyball.
Dietz is married to the former Julie Tresnak. They have three adult children and three dogs (Kaiju, Jaeger, and Spike).
