Ohio Wesleyan University | Battling Bishop Athletics

Coach Cynthia Holliday

[ Cynthia Holliday ] With 237 wins at Ohio Wesleyan, 16th-year head coach Cynthia Holliday is the winningest volleyball coach in Battling Bishop history.

Holliday’s teams have posted 4 of the 5 highest season win totals in Ohio Wesleyan history and have reached the North Coast Athletic Conference tournament championship match 4 times.

Last year, the Bishops posted an 8-22 record and were in the hunt for the NCAC tournament until the final weeks of the season.

Holliday has won NCAC Coach of the Year honors 6 times, more than any other volleyball coach in conference history. She won her fourth Coach of the Year citation after piloting the Bishops to a school-record 27 wins and Ohio Wesleyan’s first NCAC crown in 1994, her fifth in 1996 after the Bishops won their second NCAC title in 3 years, and her sixth in 2006, after the Bishops posted a 22-9 record, an improvement of 8 games over the previous season, and qualified for the NCAC tournament.

Ohio Wesleyan's 30-26, 30-22, 30-28 win over Washington & Jefferson on Sept. 29, 2001, was the 300th career win for Holliday, making her the 33rd NCAA Division III coach to reach the 300-win mark.

[ Cynthia Holliday ] In addition to coaching the Bishop volleyball team, Holliday is an associate athletics director and serves as senior women's administrator in the Ohio Wesleyan athletics department.

Holliday came to Ohio Wesleyan from Wittenberg, where she guided her Tiger volleyball teams to NCAC titles in 1992 and 1993. Her final Wittenberg team went 30-7 and made the school's first NCAA Division III playoff appearance. Her Wittenberg volleyball teams compiled a record of 99-39 over her last 4 seasons, a winning percentage of .717. In 5 years at Wittenberg, her teams went 109-66, including a record of 28-12 in NCAC competition.

Prior to coaching at Wittenberg, she was volleyball and women's basketball coach at Denison from 1985-89, earning NCAC Coach of the Year honors in volleyball in 1988. She began her career as assistant volleyball, women's basketball and softball coach at Chicago State from 1982-84.

A 1979 graduate of Illinois Benedictine College, Holliday went on to earn her M.S. Ed. from Chicago State University in 1984. She is a native of Chicago.

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