STANFORD, Calif. – John Kosty, the Birkhofer Family head men’s volleyball coach, has been selected to the 2027 Southern California Indoor Volleyball Hall of Fame (SCIVBHOF) induction class, the organization announced Monday.
Kosty, now in his 21st season at the helm of the Cardinal program and his 37th season overall on staff, joins 10 other honorees which cover the sport’s playing days going back to the 1940s through the 2000s at the highest level of competition as well as tremendous coaches with proven records.
The 2027 SCVBHOF induction class includes Kosty, Kevin Barnett, Carolyn Becker Morel, Dain Blanton, Lois Haraughty, Jenny Johnson Jordan, Paul Nihipali, Angela Rock, Dave Rubio and Walter Schiller. Jon Lee, who was the editor for ‘Volleyball Magazine’ and ‘Volleyball Monthly’, and a three-time All-American at UC Santa Barbara, was selected as the 2027 Lifetime Service award winner.
A mainstay on the Cardinal sidelines since 1991, Kosty has been a part of Stanford’s national title runs in 1997 as an assistant and in 2010 as head coach. The Cardinal has also captured four conference championships during Kosty’s time on The Farm.
It's quite possible that no coach in the sport's history has ever brought a team so far so fast as Kosty, the 2010 AVCA Division I-II National Coach of the Year, did from 2007-10. Stanford's three-year transformation from 3-25 to national champion will forever be a memorable part of the school's rich athletic history as the team that went "worst to first" – a term coined by the late Al Roderigues, Stanford’s volunteer assistant coach.
Kosty played collegiately at Golden West College in Huntington Beach before spending three seasons at UC Santa Barbara, where he earned All-America honors.
Kosty is the fifth representative of Stanford men’s volleyball to be chosen for the SCIVBHOF distinction, joining Scott Fortune (2018), Fred Sturm (2021), Don Shaw (2022) and Matt Fuerbringer (2024).