 
In his ninth year as an assistant coach, John Crutchfield has become an integral part of the Long Beach State coaching staff. He has played and coached the game of volleyball for over 35 years, both on the beach and indoors. A lifelong Long Beach resident and avid supporter of 49er Volleyball, he brings boundless enthusiasm and attention to detail along with his knowledge of playing and coaching the game. For seven seasons prior to joining Alan Knipe's staff in 2001, Crutchfield was the head coach at Wilson High School, where he also taught U.S. History, World History, Career Guidance and Criminal Law. While teaching and coaching at Wilson he wrote the curriculum for Career Guidance for the Long Beach Unified School District, served as faculty president and was twice selected as Teacher of the Year by the student body. Prior to that he served as the head coach at Servite High School and began his high school coaching career at Santa Monica High School in 1989 serving on a staff alongside the legendary Butch May and Olympic Gold Medalist Eric Sato. A graduate of USC, undergraduate (B.S., 1975) and law school (Juris Doctor, 1978), Crutchfield practiced full time as a trial attorney until 1993. He currently serves as a legal consultant for the law office of Bradon C. Bodnar in Long Beach. While still practicing law full time, Crutchfield began coaching boy's club volleyball in 1990 and since then has taken twelve teams to the Junior Olympics winning the National Championship Gold Medal in 2002 and the Bronze Medal in 2005. Three of his former players (Dan Alexander, Josh Riley, Cody Watten) are now playing at Long Beach State. Crutchfield is currently the head coach of the Riptides South Bay 18 Orange Team. In addition to his high school, club and LBSU coaching experience, Crutchfield has been selected to serve as head coach for the USA Volleyball Regional Camps in Long Beach and Ohio, served as an assistant coach for the National Youth A-2 Team at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., and has also served for 10 years as coach for the USA Volleyball High Performance and Youth National Camps and Regional Tryouts in California. Crutchfield has also assisted Knipe at each of his outstanding summer volleyball camps since 1998 and has served as co-head coach at Knipe's Long Beach and Las Vegas volleyball camps since 2005. |
|
|||||||||||||||
