Welcome home.
That feeling of returning home was at the heart of the introduction of BYU women's volleyball's newly minted head coach.
Rob Neilson was introduced by athletic director Brian Santiago as the seventh head coach for BYU women's volleyball during a press conference held Thursday at the Smith Fieldhouse — on the court where he played for the 2004 national championship men's volleyball team.
Neilson's introduction was attended by his wife, Sarah, and several BYU administrators and coaches, including women's cross country coach Diljeet Taylor.
Neilson takes over a program led by Heather Olmstead for the past eleven years. He spared no praise in talking about the mentors he had during his playing and coaching career.
He compared his style of coaching to that of two of his mentors: Carl McGown, who coached BYU's men's volleyball program for thirteen years, and John Speraw, who Neilson assisted as part of the USA Volleyball coaching staff.
"Carl McGown is a master technician," Neilson said. "He was unbelievable at teaching the game ... John Speraw is on the opposite end of the spectrum. He is the greatest storyteller, motivational person, creative mind that you could ever imagine. ... I don't know if there's two better mentors that I could have had."
Neilson sees his coaching style as a balance of the two, wanting to be incredibly technical but also inspiring and able to create narratives for his players to buy into.
Neilson's most recent stint was with the women's volleyball team at Utah State from 2020 to 2025, compiling a 112-59 record in his six seasons. Prior to his time at Utah State, he served various coaching roles at BYU on the men's side and for the U.S. Men's National Team.
He voiced his gratitude for his experiences and the relationships he built in Logan.
"It's not lost on me that I get to live my dream because of the blood, sweat and tears of our athletes and staff at Utah State and because of the support of the administration and the community," he said. "That was so amazing. I love the spot where the sagebrush grows. I'm going to miss it."
The Aggies finished their most recent campaign with an undefeated record in conference play, with eight losses overall.
"One of the things that contributed to our success [last season] was getting our tails kicked a little bit in the non-conference season, including by these ladies over here," said Neilson, gesturing to the women's team that came to support him at the conference. The Aggies were victims of a 3-0 routing by the Cougars.
"I'm still going to have nightmares about Claire [Little Chambers] hammering balls over the top of our blockers," Neilson said, recalling the harrowing memory of coaching against the squad he now leads.
His vision for the future of the BYU program includes a very challenging non-conference schedule, something he hopes to carry over from his time at Utah State.
"We're going to [play] the best teams in the country, and we might lose some games in the [Smith] Fieldhouse," Neilson said. "But we're going to learn from those moments. We're going to play the best teams so that we can bring the best things out of ourselves. And we're going to rise to some of those moments, and we're going to fail in some of those moments, and we're going to learn from all those things so that we can be our best at the end of the season."
Neilson was asked what his goals are for Year One in his new role.
"My expectations are to work hard tomorrow in practice," he said. "I don't know what we can accomplish. I know that almost every time that I've set expectations, our teams have surpassed those ... We can go do big things. We can compete for Big 12 championships. We can make runs in the NCAA tournament and compete for national championships. But we got to get to work and the expectations are that we're going to go get after it every single day."
Sounds like a coach that feels right at home at BYU.