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Craig Vlietstra is in his third year of his second stint at Grand Valley State after re-joining the Laker coaching staff in January 2009 as the team's top assistant coach. Vlietstra was on the GVSU coaching staff during the 2005 season when the Lakers won the program's first national championship.
Grand Valley State went 26-7 in 2010 and advanced to the NCAA Elite Eight after winning the Midwest Regional championship in a thrilling 3-2 win over Indianapolis. The Lakers fell to Tampa, the eventual national runner-up, but closed out a terrific year that saw GVSU tally a 17-2 record in GLIAC play and capture the GLIAC North Division title for the second time in the last three years.
In 2009, the Lakers finished with a winning record (16-13) for the 17th consecutive season, as GVSU went 11-5 in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC), placing second in the North Division. Grand Valley State advanced to the GLIAC Tournament and earned a berth in the NCAA Midwest Regional Tournament for the 10th straight year.
Among other duties, Vlietstra will assist Scanlon in most aspects of the volleyball program, including planning practices, recruiting, coordinating summer camps, and breaking down film. One of his specialties on the court is training the team's setters.
Vlietstra came to GVSU after a two-year stint as the head coach of Judson University, an NAIA institution in Elgin, Ill. In his two years with the Eagles, Vlietstra owned a 20-49 record, had two all-league performers in the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference (CCAC) and one NCCAA All-America honoree.
Prior to his time at Judson, Vlietstra spent a year at GLIAC North Division rival Michigan Tech as the top assistant coach, helping MTU to its first NCAA Tournament berth in 10 years. This came a year after he was the second assistant coach with Scanlon and GVSU for the 2005 national championship season. During that season, Vlietstra trained the setters on a Laker team that went 32-6 and won both the GLIAC championship and the Great Lakes Regional tournament title.
Before spending two seasons in NCAA Division II, Vlietstra was the head coach at Siena Heights, an NAIA school in Adrian, Mich., from 1999 to 2004. His six-year tenure solidified a program that had seen five different coaches in five years prior to his arrival. In 2000, Vlietstra was named as the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference Coach of the Year. He also served as the academic liaison and intramural director at SHU.
Vlietstra also spent a year as an assistant coach at Michigan State in 1998. While at MSU, the Spartans tallied a 23-6 record and hosted an NCAA Tournament sub-regional during his time. Vlietstra began his collegiate career at Glen Oaks Community College in 1996 and totaled an 82-27 record in two seasons.
On the club level, he has worked with the Sports Performance 18-Blue team in Illinois and the Premier Volleyball Club in Ohio for four years as the Director of Player Development.
Vlietstra is from Kalamazoo, Mich. and received a bachelor's of business administration degree in management from Western Michigan in 1994. He earned his master's degree in organizational leadership from Siena Heights in 2006. Craig was married to Laker assistant coach Mayme Vlietstra in August 2009. The couple welcomed their first child, daughter Anastasia, to the family in July 2011.
