Andrew Fuller

Andrew Fuller enters his eighth season as head coach of the Stanford beach volleyball team in 2023-24.

In his tenure, Fuller has guided Stanford to a 123-86 overall record, including the program's three NCAA Championship appearances from 2021-2023.

2023 was the year the Cardinal beach volleyball team continued to rewrite its history books. With the program's first-ever win at the NCAA Championships, Stanford carried on its longtime legacy of excellence in the 2023 season. The Cardinal ended its 2023 campaign with a 29-13 record, smashing its previous record of 24 wins (in a single season).  

The Cardinal handed two top-five programs losses late in the 2023 season, topping No. 5 LSU on its home courts and besting No. 1 UCLA at home during the 2023 Pac-12 Championship. 

Freshmen Kelly Belardi and Ashley Vincent came to The Farm ready to make their marks in the history books in just their first years of collegiate action. Throughout the season, the duo set a new Stanford program record for wins as a pair in a single season (28), while Vincent set the program record for wins as an individual in a single season with 32 victories. Belardi sits second in the record books for the same laurel, earning 28 wins throughout her first-year campaign. The duo both ended their prolific first seasons with All-Pac-12 Freshman team honors and an AVCA Top Flight award.  

Junior Xolani Hodel, senior Maddi Kriz, and fifth-year Charlie Ekstrom were each named to 2023 All-Pac-12 Conference teams, celebrating their successes on the sand throughout the 2023 campaign. Alongside Belardi and Vincent's freshman team honors, the Cardinal had five members of its squad honored by the conference for the third straight season. Rounding out the honors for the Cardinal in 2023, Xolani Hodel and Maddi Kriz earned AVCA Second-Team All-American honors. 

Continuing the program's success from 2021, Stanford ended its 2022 season with a 24-12 record, the most wins in a single season in program history and the fewest losses for the program since the 2017 campaign. That marked just two of the program's best marks that the 2022 team broke throughout its incredible year on the sand, and 2022 is a year that will go down in the Stanford record books for years to come. 

Led by sophomore Xolani Hodel's second consecutive All-Pac-12 first-team selection, the Cardinal collected five honors from the Pac-12 at the conclusion of the 2022 season. Senior Charlie Ekstrom, sophomore Kate Reilly, and junior Maddi Kriz each earned All-Pac-12 second-team nods and freshman Emma Morris was named to the All-Freshman team. The Cardinal's five postseason conference honorees tied for the most by the program in a single season, while the Cardinal's four 2022 All-Pac-12 team members were the most ever collected by the Stanford program. Fuller also led Ekstrom, Reilly and Hodel to each earn AVCA Second-Team All-America honors. 

Fuller, the 2021 AVCA Collegiate Beach National Coach of the Year and Pac-12 Coach of the Year, led the Cardinal to set a new program record with 23 wins in 2021, finishing 23-13 overall and earning the No. 6 seed in Gulf Shores at NCAA Championships. From March 6 to April 3, Stanford won 13 straight matches to set a new school record.

Stanford had 11 wins over ranked opponents during the 2021 season, including a program-record five, Top-10 victories.

No. 1 pair Xolani Hodel and Sunny Villapando earned AVCA First Team All-America in 2021, the program's first-ever First Team All-Americans. 

Villapando (67) and fellow senior Amelia Smith (60) finished their careers ranked No. 1 and 2, respectively, in career wins. 

Smith, Hodel and Villapando each earned 22 individual wins in 2021, tied for third-most in program history for a single season. 

Smith and partner Emmy Sharp finished 19-5 on the season as a duo, setting a new program record for most wins by a pair in a season. The pair won 13 straight matches at one point to set the school record. 

Prior to the COVID-19 cancellation in 2020, Stanford was 6-7, having won six of its last eight matchups, all six wins coming over Pac-12 foes.

The Cardinal finished 11-18 overall in 2019, boasting a lineup that regularly featured four freshmen. Among the individual highlights: junior Morgan Hentz moving past Courtney Bowen as the program's all-time wins leader and rookie Charlie Ekstrom becoming only the second player in school history to earn a spot on the All-Pac-12 team and All-Freshman team.

In 2018, Fuller directed Stanford to a program-record (at the time) 17 wins on the season. The Cardinal also tallied an 11-match win streak early in the season, the longest such stretch in program history. 

During his first season in 2017, Fuller guided Stanford to 13 wins, including the program's first postseason victory, a 5-0 shutout of Utah at the Pac-12 Championship.

Fuller has been instrumental in overseeing the transition from indoor to beach for players such as Bowen, Hentz and Jenna Gray - all of whom had never competed in beach volleyball prior to joining the program. Fuller was also responsible for the development of Kathryn Plummer, who was named the 2017 Pac-12 Freshman of the Year.

From 2012-15, Fuller served as assistant coach at USC, helping the Trojans win the 2015 national championship and three consecutive pairs titles starting in 2013. Fuller coached six All-Americans in his time at USC.

Fuller served as assistant coach for Long Beach State in 2012, the inaugural season of NCAA beach volleyball, guiding the 49ers to second-place finishes in both the team and pairs national championships in Gulf Shores, Alabama.

Fuller also serves as a coach for the United States Beach Volleyball National Team. In 2016, he coached his wife, Lauren Fendrick, and Brooke Sweat to a berth at the Rio Olympics, guiding the same pair to a fifth-place finish at the 2015 World Championships. In 2015, Fuller coached Fendrick to victory at the 2015 AVP Championships in Huntington Beach, California.

Fuller is an instructor and cadre member of the USA Beach Volleyball Coaching Accreditation Program, as well as an active coach and evaluator for the USA Volleyball High Performance program. Fuller was named Head Coach for the Girls’ U15 and U17 A1 National Teams in 2018 and 2019. Fuller currently serves on the NCAA Beach Volleyball Committee.

Fuller is also a successful professional beach volleyball player, laying claim to nine top-10 finishes on the AVP Tour. With partner Mark Van Zwieten, Fuller finished fifth in the 2011 Pan American Games.

A graduate of Saint Francis High School and native of nearby Mountain View, California, Fuller graduated from Virginia Tech in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in communications while serving as president of the men’s volleyball team. Fuller also earned an MFA degree in photography at Academy of Art University in San Francisco in 2011.