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University of Illinois Athletics

CHAMPAIGN, IL - August 13, 2025 - Headshot for Volleyball Associate Head Coach Meredith Schamun at Huff Hall in Champaign, IL. Photo by Ashley Ray/Fighting Illini

Meredith Schamun

  • Title
    Associate Head Coach

Illinois volleyball head coach Chris Tamas announced the addition of Meredith Schamun (pronounced shah-MOON) as the Associate Head Coach in June of 2025.

Schamun joins the Fighting Illini following a four-year stint at Penn. Most recently, she guided the Quakers to a successful 13-10 campaign with an 7-7 Ivy League record in 2024. The season included the Quakers' first win over rival Princeton since 2015 and their first victory over Brown since 2019. Following the season, a pair of Schamun's players received honorable mention All-Ivy recognition.

Schamun came to Penn from Villanova, where she helped the Wildcats to a 39-23 record in two seasons as the assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. Schamun assisted Villanova to a pair of Big East Tournament appearances and a combined 23-13 record in league play. In 2019, the Wildcats were 22-9 overall and 13-5 in the Big East. That year, she guided the Wildcat offense, which finished second in the league in hitting percentage, and trained Villanova's all-time assist leader.

Prior to arriving at Villanova, Schamun spent two seasons at Tulane as an assistant coach, helping the Green Wave to the highest RPI jump in the nation (157 spots) in 2016. Tulane had its first winning season in three years and finished fifth in the American Athletic Conference with Schamun on the sideline.

From 2014-15, Schamun was the director of volleyball operations at UCF, helping organize travel, scheduling, and recruiting for the Knights, who won the conference title and reached the NCAA Championship field in 2014.

A highly decorated setter at Rice University, Schamun was a four-year starter for the Owls. The Conference USA Setter of the Year in 2009, Schamun was a Conference USA Championship MVP, two-time All-C-USA First Team, AVCA All-Region, and AVCA All-America honorable mention selection. She helped lead the Owls to a conference championship and two NCAA Championship berths, and finished her career as Rice's all-time leader in assists with 5,190.­

Following her time with the Owls, Schamun played professionally in Germany for one season.

Schamun graduated from Rice in 2011 with a bachelor's degree in kinesiology and policy studies for healthcare administration and earned a master's from UCF in sport and exercise science in 2015.