York University Athletics

Jennifer Neilson enters her seventh season as York women's volleyball head coach in 2024-25.

She joined the Lions coaching staff in 2018 and is the sixth coach in program history. She led the 2022-23 team to its first playoff win in 10 years, and was nominated for the Lions coach of the year award. 
 
Neilson began coaching at an elite level while attending the University of Toronto, as she spent time as an assistant coach with Team BC’s 16U women’s team in 2013 and became an assistant coach with the Team Ontario 18U team in 2014. After graduating from U of T with a bachelor of kinesiology in 2015, she became an assistant coach for the women’s volleyball team at the University of Windsor while she completed her master’s in human kinetics. Most recently, she’s been a head coach with the Halton Region Volleyball Club, Team Ontario’s 16U women’s team, and worked with the OVA as high-performance coordinator and apprentice coach.
 
Neilson is also well-rounded at the administrative level, having developed and managed programming for the OVA’s high-performance plan and lead their high-performance athlete identification process.
 
As a star outside hitter with the Varsity Blues, Neilson was named to the OUA all-star team three years in a row from 2013-15 and was named to the CIS national championship all-star team in 2015. The Port Coquitlam, B.C., native was also a two-time academic all-Canadian, and attended Volleyball Canada selection camps for the senior A team in 2014 and the FISU Games team in 2015.