Nick Collins

Nick Collins began his playing career at NVVA playing outside hitter and libero. His team qualified for nationals twice in 2010 and 2011, finishing 17th on both occasions. He was recruited to play at Rutgers University where he played two years of DI volleyball and two years of DIII as the program transitioned to a new conference. There, he played outside hitter and libero and helped the team come in 5th in the nation two years running at the NCAA Tournament.

Nick is going into his 10th season coaching club volleyball and 7th season with The St. James. This past season, Nick head coached Boys 17 Navy to a 19th place bronze bracket finish at Boys Open AAU Nationals with a notable win over eventual tournament champion Balboa Bay. Nick has helped develop 7 D1 commits and 4 more moving on to play DIII. His teams have had 5 players train with the U16/U19 National Teams, 3 with NTDP beach, with 1 making the U19 National Team. Nick was also recognized as a 2024 AVCA 30 under 30 award winner this past fall.

Apart from St. James, Nick spent 4 years as an assistant coach at George Mason University for the men’s DI volleyball program. In addition to coaching, he served as the primary statistician doing DataVolley for the team during matches. Nick also spent two years as head coach for the varsity volleyball program at Robinson High School in Fairfax, VA. In his two seasons, he led the Rams to a 30-2 conference record, coached eight all-district players and five all-region players, and one all-state player as the team made States for the first time in almost 20 years. Nick currently is head coach for Robinson Boys Varsity Volleyball in their inaugural season of play.

Nick is also going into his 4th season in leadership as the Assistant Director of Volleyball. His primary goals are player development, coach’s training, travel management for the club season, and serving as the club’s recruiting coordinator. In the past three years, St. James has had it’s most successful stretch with 10 players committed to play DI, and 6 move onto DII/DIII. STJ has also seen 9 athletes get selected for NTDP Training Camps and 5 others getting selected for NTDP Beach. At Nationals, the club has seen 3 Gold Bracket and 5 silver bracket finishes in Open, a CHRVA region record 5th place finish in Open for the Boys 18’s team in the 2022-2023 season, and had the club’s first podium finish with Boys 15 White this past season.