Jon Lee has given so much to the sport of volleyball throughout his life — as a player and coach indoors and on the beach, as a referee, journalist, broadcaster and global ambassador.
He’s received many honors in his career, and this past week the former San Marcos High coach was bestowed with another: the 2027 Lifetime Service Award from the Southern California Indoor Volleyball Hall of Fame.
Lee joins an induction class that includes former UC Santa Barbara All-American middle blocker and current Stanford University men’s volleyball coach John Kosty.
This is the SCIVBHOF’s 11th class of distinguished individuals who have made a huge impact in the indoor game. The other inductees are: Olympians Kevin Barnett, Carolyn Becker Morel, Dain Blanton, Jenny Johnson Jordan, and Angela Rock, all-time USVBA greats and 1959 Pan-American Games medalist setters Lois Haraughty and Walter Schiller, Arizona Volley Four coach Dave Rubio, and two-time NCAA Championship player Paul Nihipali from UCLA.
“We have such a versatile group of 2027 honorees that covers the sport playing days going back from the 1940s to 2000s at the highest level of competition, and tremendous coaches who have proven records of NCAA winning,” said Raphael Tulino, CFO of the Southern California Indoor Volleyball Hall of Fame. “It is exciting that our honorees represent so many West Coast universities from USC, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, San Diego State, Pepperdine, Stanford, Arizona, Cal State Northridge, Cal State Bakersfield, and Cal Poly SLO as well as Santa Monica and El Camino Colleges.”
This is the fourth Hall of Fame honor for Lee, who’s also been inducted into the San Marcos High, the California Beach Volleyball Association and Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table halls of fame. He’s also had the court at the San Marcos Thunderhut gym named in his honor and a sand court at East Beach dedicated in his name by the Friends of East Beach Association.
Lee was a three-time USVBA All-American at UCSB and a member of the school’s 1969 USVBA National Championship squad. He played professionally for the Santa Barbara Spikers of the International Volleyball Association and for a club in Spain.
He also excelled in men’s beach doubles, competing at the highest level for many years.
As a coach, he led the girls and boys volleyball teams at San Marcos for 23 years, guiding the boys to a pair of CIF-SS titles and the girls to one, while winning several Channel League championships with both programs. He’s had several student athletes play in college and seen players compete for U.S. National Teams and play professionally overseas.
Two of his players, Dax Holdren and Todd Rogers, played beach volleyball in the Olympic Games. Rogers played in two Olympics and won a gold medal with Phil Dalhausser at the 2008 Games in Beijing, China.
More than 50 of his former players went on to become volleyball coaches.
Lee also covered volleyball all over the world as a journalist, serving as a senior writer/editor for Volleyball and Dig magazines, and he was the first volleyball analyst for ESPN.
In his summers, Lee organized a long-running and successful beach volleyball camp at East Beach.
Additionally, he volunteered as an international ambassador for the sport of volleyball, teaching the game to children in Africa and elsewhere around the globe.
The other Lifetime Service honorees are: Michael Sondheimer (2026), Rocky Ciarelli, Marc ‘Cubby’ Jacobs (2025), Charlie Jackson (2024), Bill Stetson (2023), Alice Chambers Sanchez (2022), Linda Murphy (2021), Charlie Brande, Sue Gozansky (2020), Ann Davenport, Pat & Sharkie Zartman, (2019) Byron Shewman (2018) and Elissa Sato (2017).
Kosty played middle blocker for SCIVB Hall of Famer Ken Preston at UCSB from 1985-87. In his three seasons, he moved the near the top of the Gaucho record books, placing third in career solo blocks and third in single season solo blocks. He was named as an All-American in 1987.
Kosty went into coaching and landed at Stanford, where he served as an assistant under Ruben Nieves (San Marcos alum). The Cardinal won the NCAA Championship in 1997. He also worked under Don Shaw (UCSB alum and SCIVB Hall of Famer) at Stanford before taking over as the men’s head coach in 2007.
Kosty coached one of the biggest turnarounds in Division 1 men’s volleyball history, taking a program that went 3-25 in his first season to winning a national championship and going 24-6 three years later in 2010.
Other Hall of Fame members with local ties include Ken Preston, George Roumain, Rick Olmstead, Don Shaw, Gary Sato, Rudy Suwara, Kathy Gregory , Doug Partie and Karch Kiraly.
