Baden Pronounce

Ninth-year head coach Ray Gooden has enjoyed a successful run, both on and off the court, since taking the helm in 2002. Countless hours of dedication to his craft have led to an impressive list of accomplishments. He's chalked up a 129-121 record, going 88-84 in the Mid-American Conference and an even better 76-48 at home.

Several of the players Gooden has coached throughout his Huskie career have also captured the top spots on the program's individual career records board. The top three place holders in kills, kills per set, attack attempts, and points all played under Gooden, as well as the top two holders in digs and digs per set.

In addition to a 2006 first place finish in the MAC West, Gooden has coached the only All-American in program history, two MAC Player of the Year selections, 14 All-MAC selections, four MAC All-Freshman selections, and nine Academic All-MAC selections, all of which have never been accomplished before at Northern Illinois. Last season alone, three Huskies took home All-MAC honors, including NIU's first ever MAC Defensive Player of the Year award, which was given to Maddie Hughes. Hughes was also named to the second team All-MAC along with Allison McGlaughlin, while Meagan Schoenrock earned a spot on the first team All-MAC to become the first in history to garner first or second team All-MAC recognition four times in a career.

Gooden led the 2009 team to more than just individual accolades. For the second straight year, the Huskies were named as a recipient of the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Team Academic Award. The award recognizes collegiate athletes and high school volleyball teams that showed excellence in the classroom during the school year by holding a minimum cumulative grade-point average of 3.30 on a 4.0 scale.

Three individual players, Kristin Hoffman, McGlaughlin, and Schoenrock, were even selected to the Academic All-MAC team. They were amongst the several other NIU student-athletes that contributed to the 10th consecutive semester of an overall NIU Athletics GPA of 3.0 or better. Even more impressive, for the fourth straight semester, and the fifth time in the last six terms, it was Gooden's team who took the top honors in cumulative GPA as they came in with a 3.346 mark.

Last year, Gooden led the team to an 8-8 record in the MAC, earning a fourth place finish, as well as a first round bye in the MAC Tournament for the second time in his eight seasons at Northern Illinois.

The last time the Huskies earned a first-round bye was in 2006, when Gooden was awarded the MAC Co-Coach of the Year. That season, he led the Huskies to a MAC West first place finish with a 13-3 MAC record, going 20-9 overall. The 2006 squad was led by AVCA honorable mention All-American Kate McCullagh, who is the all-time kills leader at NIU, and Gina Guide, who is the program's all-time digs leader.

On Sept. 9, 2008, the third all-time wins leader at NIU picked up his 100th win as the Huskies defeated Western Illinois in Macomb to become the fourth coach in program history to hit the century mark in victories.

Just over two weeks after that, he watched Schoenrock put down her 1,000th career kill in a match against Western Michigan, making her the third Huskie to join the 1,000-kill club under Gooden. The other two are at the top of the list are McCullagh (2003-06) with 1,936 kills (second in MAC history) and Tera Lobdell (2001-04), who ranks second at NIU with 1,907 kills (third in MAC history).

With Schoenrock now gone, Gooden moved quickly to help bolster the outside hitters by bringing in the first high school All-American in program history, Lauren Wicinski. Alongside McGlaughlin, who is on pace to become the fourth Gooden-coached Huskie to reach 1,000 kills, Wicinski will look to have just as good of a career, if not better, than her mother, Gina Graf. From 1983-86, Graf totaled 1,328 kills for NIU and ranks seventh all-time.

Gooden's coaching experience over the past nine years has gone beyond the Victor E. Court. He has taken seven overseas trips to coach on international courts in Europe (three times), Japan (twice), Argentina, Guatemala, and Brazil.

This past June Gooden and middle blocker Mary Kurisch represented the United States in Brazil on the Bring It Promotions/USA Development Team, where they played matches against the Brazilian Youth and National Teams. They even had the opportunity to face select professional squads.

In February of 2009, Gooden served as a court coach and evaluator for the National Team tryout in Colorado Springs, Colo. Four Huskies participated in the tryout and Kristin Hoffman was selected to the Youth National A2 Team that competed in the 2009 Global Challenge in Pula, Croatia this summer. Hoffman became the fourth Huskie to compete internationally under Gooden.

Gooden has spent 15 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 recruiting coordinator at Loyola, the Ramblers posted four consecutive 20-win seasons and back-to-back Horizon League (then-Midwestern Collegiate Conference) titles that garnered 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, 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.

Prior to his stint at Loyola, Gooden spent a season each at Chicago-area schools Lewis and Northwestern 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 three-year-old daughter, Gianna Ella, and two-year-old son, Donovan Isiah.