Kara Barkdoll Coy steps in as women’s volleyball acting head coach, replaces Greene

Emily Gjevre, Staff Writer • Nov 17, 2025

Photo by Tanvi Iyer/ UCSD Guardian

If you watched the last four UC San Diego women’s volleyball games, you might have noticed something — head coach Melanie Greene was conspicuously missing from the bench.

Greene’s last game on the sideline was against Cal State Fullerton on Nov. 1. She has been absent for the last four contests, both at home and on the road. Prior to their Nov. 1 win against Fullerton, the Tritons had lost eight straight games. In her absence, assistant coach Kara Barkdoll Coy has served as acting head coach, and men’s volleyball head coach Brad Rostratter has stepped in as an assistant coach.

Greene’s absence began in the latter half of her second season as head coach of the women’s volleyball team. Greene previously served as an assistant coach for San Diego State from 2008 to 2023. She left to become the seventh head coach of the UCSD women’s volleyball program in 2024 — the same year that Coy joined the Tritons.

Coy worked at San Diego State and Cal State San Marcos prior to her time at UCSD. Her time in San Diego was only interrupted by a two-year stretch where Coy served as graduate assistant coach at Concordia University Irvine. Before that, she graduated from CSUSM in 2015 after winning four consecutive conference championships as part of the Cougars’ volleyball team.

During Greene’s time on the sideline this season, the team went 5-19 overall and 3-9 in conference play. Greene’s overall record across her two seasons coaching is 22-32, going 14-16 against Big West opponents.

Last season, the team qualified for the Big West Championship for the first time in program history, but lost in the first round to Long Beach State. This season, the Tritons were eliminated from contention with three games left to play in a 3-1 loss against UC Riverside.

UCSD Athletics responded to The UCSD Guardian’s request for comment.

“We can confirm Melanie will not be on the sideline Tuesday night at LionTree Arena,” a spokesperson said to The UCSD Guardian. “Due to privacy laws, we cannot comment on personnel matters.”

UCSD Athletics also added that Coy would continue as acting head coach for UCSD’s game against Long Beach State, but did not provide further information on how long Coy will be in this position.

About the Contributors

Emily Gjevre, Senior Staff Writer

Second year history student who enjoys gallivanting around the greater San Diego area in search of sweet treats. She can almost always be found power-walking through campus listening to opera, or talking someone’s ear off about hockey.

Tanvi Iyer, Photographer

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Brian • Dec 16, 2025 at 3:35 pm

Greene and other coaches treated my daughter, who was a good player at UCSD, like crap! They made my daughter’s senior year a horrible experience, to the point that she wanted to quit on multiple occasions. The only reason she decided to stay on, was not to quit on her Team and she wanted to complete her education at UCSD!

She didn’t even feel comfortable returning to campus to support the Team this year because she didn’t want to run into these coaches.

Instead of encouraging and making a good player better, these coaches would try to tear her down and try to make her feel poorly about herself. As a parent this was extremely difficult to observe and at the request of my daughter not to say anything to the athletic department leaders, in fear of further poor treatment by her coaches, I never spoke up… I am speaking up now though.

My daughter wasn’t the only one treated poorly by these coaches and that is why some of the good/talented players left the program after the first year of this coaching staff. My guess is that they might lose more good/talented players after this year as well, which is unfortunate.

UCSD is a beautiful campus and offers a great education to it’s student athletes! My daughter truly loved her time at UCSD as a whole and we are all super thankful for the opportunity that UCSD and Coach Luyties gave her to play volleyball there and to get a great education.

Hopefully with a new/good coaching staff they can start afresh and build a great women’s volleyball program at UCSD, that it can/should be and a program that former players will be proud of and want to support and feel like they are welcomed at all times!! Go Tritons!


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