Thomas Amberg

Former UCLA men’s volleyball standout and LSU volunteer assistant coach Thomas Amberg enters his third season as an assistant coach at Virginia Tech.

Amberg was instrumental in the progress of Tech’s middle blockers in 2018. Marisa Cerchio led the charge in the middle under Amberg, improving her blocks per set by 0.75 to own the 10^th-best mark in the ACC with a 1.08 average. In the last match of the season, Cerchio posted a career-high 11 blocks against Clemson, which tied for the seventh-most in program history. The Ohio native also put together the third-highest hitting percentage in school history versus William & Mary, recording a .813 clip with 13 kills on 16 errorless swings.

Against Charlotte, the Hokies racked up 18 blocks as a team, marking the most-ever in the Jill Wilson era. Middle blockers Cerchio and Kai Young combined for 17 block assists, guiding Tech to winning the Charlotte Invitational. On the weekend in three matches, Tech held its opponents to a combined hitting percentage of .088. On the season, the Hokies held 13 of their opponents to hitting under .200 with Amberg's prowess.
 
In 2017, his first season in Blacksburg, Amberg was critical in the development of middle blockers Stacey Christy and Cara Cunningham. Christy posted career-bests numbers in kills, blocks and aces, while Cunningham hit .800 (8-of-10) in Tech’s match versus Miami (Fla.) – the fourth-best hitting percentage in a match in program history. In the Hokies’ home contest against Virginia, the squad posted a season-high 14 blocks under Amberg’s tutelage.  
 
Amberg spent the 2013 and 2016 seasons on the bench in Baton Rouge with Jill Wilson between playing professionally in France for three years.
 
A native of El Cajon, California, Amberg also has experience coaching boys and girls at the club level with Club Pacific Volleyball in East San Diego after graduating from UCLA. Amberg had a decorated four-year career in Westwood that was capped with consensus first-team All-America honors from the AVCA and Volleyball Magazine as a senior. He was also voted first-team All-Mountain Pacific Sports Federation that season after leading the conference with a .486 hitting percentage and finishing fourth with 1.43 blocks per set.
 
He ended his career as a Bruin with his name in the top 10 all time in several statistical categories, including blocks (sixth, 466) and hitting percentage (eighth, .404). In the summer of 2010 entering his sophomore campaign, Amberg played several matches with the USA Volleyball Junior National Team that competed in India.
 
While an undergraduate, Amberg completed internships in the UCLA Athletics finance office and the campus career center. He graduated in 2012 with a degree in sociology.