LA JOLLA, Calif. — UC San Diego men's volleyball assistant coach Jorge Collazo has been named to the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) 2025 Thirty Under 30 list.

The AVCA Thirty Under 30 program recognizes up-and-coming coaches in different sectors of the sport who serve in a range of roles, from head coach to volunteer assistant to club director. This year's list of Thirty Under 30 College Award recipients includes women's and men's indoor and beach coaches. The honorees work hard and are passionate about teaching, helping players reach their full potential, and growing the game at the collegiate level.

Honorees had to be age 30 or under as of Dec. 31, 2024, to qualify for the award.

Collazo was named an assistant coach at UC San Diego in October of 2023.

"This is a well deserved honor for a great coach who has made an impact on our program, coaching staff, and scholar-athletes. Learning and growing as a leader have been traits that have shown throughout his time within our program and it is a great model for how we want our scholar-athletes to attack their passions in life," said UC San Diego head men's volleyball coach Brad Rostratter.

This season, Collazo helped the Tritons to an 18-12 record and a No. 10 national ranking. The team won its first six matches of the year, five of those coming in straight sets. UC San Diego defeated two teams ranked in the national top-10 including No. 4 UC Irvine and No. 8 Stanford. The Tritons earned the fourth seed for the Big West Championship and defeated fifth-seeded UC Santa Barbara in the quarterfinal round before falling to Long Beach State, the top-ranked team in the country, in a semifinal.

Three Tritons garnered All-Big West accolades including opposite hitter Anthony Cherfan (First Team), setter Bryce Dvorak (First Team), and outside hitter Josh Schellinger (Honorable Mention).

Collazo came to La Jolla from McKendree University in Lebanon, Ill., where he was an assistant coach with both the men's and women's programs between 2022 and 2023. Prior to that, he was an assistant coach at Lincoln Memorial in Harrogate, Tenn., from 2020-22.

Collazo has extensive experience coaching at the club level as well.

As a libero, Collazo played at Lincoln Memorial in 2017 and led the team in digs. He transferred to McKendree and was a Bearcat from 2018-20. As a student-athlete in 2020, he was the recipient of an AVCA Diversity Award, given to help engage, educate, and strengthen African-American and ethnic minority coaches to showcase their coaching and leadership abilities.

Collazo graduated from McKendree in 2020 with a bachelor's degree in Biology. He received a master's in Public Administration from Lincoln Memorial in 2022.

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About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program began a new era in 2020 as a member of The Big West Conference in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 84 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have earned prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 91 percent, one of the highest rates among institutions at all divisions.