Ohio State’s Jen Flynn Oldenburg Talks Buckeyes Volleyball On Press Pros….

As an addition to our inventory of sports opportunities at the next level for area athletes, Ohio State head volleyball coach Jen Flynn Oldenburg wants you to know that Ohio State volleyball is fully invested in the country’s fastest rising example of competitive excitement – big moments, big crowds, and big life opportunities for those who prepare for life beyond volleyball.

To the average Buckeye fan Ohio State head volleyball coach Jen Flynn Oldenburg’s name would not resonate alongside that of Ryan Day, Jake Diebler, or even women’s basketball coach Kevin McGuff.

She would admit, with a smile, that for the longest time women’s volleyball has existed in the shadows of other more publicized collegiate athletic competition – those that make money, make headlines, and pay bills.

“But that’s changing,”  she said last week, talking in her office at the sparkling new Covelli Center on the campus of Ohio State University, a facility built exclusively for the enrichment and profiling of Big Ten volleyball at Ohio State University.

“Volleyball is one of the fastest rising sports in America,”  she added proudly, sounding a lot like area high school coaches who proudly add their own spin to that same proclamation – New Bremen’s Diana Kramer, notably.

“It’s exciting, it’s captivating, and it’s easy to like,”  smiles Flynn Oldenburg.  “It’s drawing big crowds, filling college football stadiums at Nebraska, and conferences all over the country are upping their game in the name of volleyball.  I’m proud to be a part of that representing Ohio State in the Big Ten Conference, where volleyball has been a big deal for a long time at schools like Nebraska, Penn State, and Wisconsin.”

And is Ohio State (6-22 in 2025), in her seventh season as coach, one of those rising?

“We’d like to think so,”  she adds, never breaking smile.

But, just four years ago she took a more veteran Ohio State group to the NCAA Elite Eight in the tournament with a record of 22-10…before NIL, transferring for dollars, and in Flynn Oldenburg’s own words, “Chasing something that isn’t going to last” put the program in a state of reset.

To her excitement over the rapid rise of volleyball, it’s been a big deal in the Big Ten for a while, Nebraska perhaps the biggest, and an item of national profile recently when the Huskers scheduled and marketed an outdoors match in their Memorial Stadium football complex, drawing 92,003 fans in August of 2023 against the University of Nebraska, Omaha.  The event took the country by surprise – Guiness World Record proportions – a capping event in the minds of those who count volleyball as one of Title IX’s crown jewels in women’s sports – 92,003 people for a women’s volleyball match, and anything but a novelty.

“Definitely NOT a novelty,”  smiled Oldenburg.  “But it took a lot of confidence and work to pull it off, and I’m not sure John Cook was responsible for it.

Cook is the recently retired coach at Nebraska, who amassed a record of 722-103 in his twenty five years of coaching at Nebraska.

“I think that was their way of letting the world know what the Big Ten believes about women’s volleyball, and its direction for the future.”

Would she attempt it in Columbus?  At the Horseshoe?

“I would be nervous about it,”  she admits.  “The humidity, the elements, and Ohio weather at that time of year.  But others are doing it.”

To wit, the Big Ten, the Southeastern Conference and the Chicago Cubs announced in March that Nebraska will play Missouri, along with Penn State taking on Kentucky, at Wrigley Field on Sept. 6, as part of the inaugural Big Ten/SEC Volleyball Challenge Week.

Oldenburg grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, played at Ohio State from 1996 through ’99, and ranks #7 on the school’s list of all-time assists (3,213) and #12 for career digs (1,138).  She is recognized as one of the most accomplished athletes in Ohio State volleyball history, earning All-Big Ten honors at multiple positions and later competing for the USA National Team, where she helped win a silver medal at the 2002 World Championship.

Her coaching career includes nearly a decade as an assistant at the University of Illinois, in Champaign.  And in 2020, she was named as the head coach at Ohio State, making her journey in volleyball full circle, and serves presently as board president of the AVCA (American Volleyball Coaches Association).

Her knowledge of Ohio high school volleyball strikes you as something she spends time on – knowledgeable of top teams, top conferences, and top coaches and players across the state.  Mention names like Tipp City’s Abby Mader, and her expression brightens immediately.  Recruiting and knowing the market, like any sport, is the bane of a coach’s existence.

Some she gets as Ohio State recruits, and others, like Coldwater’s Spencer Etzler, get away.  Etzler was a freshman libero sensation a year ago at Stanford University.

“You can’t get em’ all,”  she sighs.  “In many cases we’ve committed scholarship money to a particular position – libero and setter – and you just can’t accumulate those positions in volleyball like they do quarterbacks in football.  So there are going to be players that seek opportunities elsewhere, and you understand that.  We’ve already lost significantly from past recruiting classes through transfer – the portal.”

And she’s gained, as well.  Her 2026 roster lists no fewer than five international recruits from points like Paris, France, and the Czech Republic;  and Emily Avshalomov (Israel), Mina Gunes (Turkey), and Kalli Jioshvili-Ravva (Cannes, France).

But she’s also gleaned, locally.  Her impressive sophomore libero is Mia Stahler, from Ben Logan High School.  Setter Abby Yoder hails from Kings High School, in Cincinnati.  Freshman outside hitter Alia Schoonover played last year at Buckeye Valley High School, and freshman Layla Hoying (the pride of grandparents Verne and Sue, from St. Henry), played her high school ball at Watterson, in Columbus.

Flynn Oldenburg’s enthusiasm for the sport and its attributes bounces like a ping-pong ball.

“So what did you think?”  she beamed, following Saturday night’s straight-set win over Ohio University in a pre-season exhibition at the Covelli Center.  A thousand people turned out to watch, and Ohio State graphics and the sound department did its part with the sell.  Interestingly enough, the background music boomed the old Linda Ronstadt standard, Just One Look.  And that’s all that Flynn Olberding is asking from those who’ve yet to see.

“It’s fun, isn’t it?”  she asked, never breaking smile, of course.  “And what a facility for volleyball!”

And damn, if she didn’t sound like Diana Kramer when she talked, because her beginnings in Pittsburgh were a far cry from where she stands today.

“Blue-collar household,”  she says.  “My mom was a public school health and Phys Ed teacher and my dad worked in public works.  We weren’t poor, but we weren’t rich, either.  I grew up understanding the value of education and work.”

Which, as part of her sales pitch for volleyball, Oldenburg puts right out there alongside the fun and competitive values of volleyball at Ohio State.

“It’s a sport where if you play professionally you can’t retire on that kind of money, so you have to have a degree and a career, apart, that they’re excited about.  I tell my players that they have to be prepared for what’s next…after volleyball.  When I went through Ohio State all I wanted to do was play volleyball, but also knew from my parents how important that degree was to me and our family.  And my mom, who was always supportive, was still afraid that I would go pro without getting my degree.

“So when I did decide to play professionally after my final semester I was so nervous to tell her.  I got physically ill.  But when I explained to her the opportunity after my Senior Night she said, “That’s a no-brainer.  You have to.”  Because she knew, that I knew the degree was important, so after I did play pro volleyball I came back to get my degree in a fifth year situation where I helped as a volunteer assistant.

“So it all worked out, but today that education piece is a big one for our student athletes.  And it’s a piece that I worry about being overlooked in today’s world of revenue sharing, NIL, transferring for dollars, and chasing something that isn’t going to last.  We talk about it a lot at Ohio State, because education is still a culture thing in Ohio.  Their path for what’s next is super important for me.”

As is our coverage of collegiate volleyball – Ohio State volleyball, she claims – the opportunity to present it to an eager and willing community of young players in west-central Ohio where the highest percentage of OHSAA titles in the sport are presented in an almost yearly manner – Marion Local (5), St. Henry (7), New Bremen (4), Versailles (3), Parkway (2), Lehman Catholic (3), Jackson Center (2), Fort Loramie (2), Miami East (3), Fort Recovery (1), New Knoxville (1), Anna (1) and Tipp City (reigning Div. III champion).

The game, Flynn Oldenburg, assures, is the same.  Just bigger and faster, like life itself once you leave high school.

Local players are doing it – Spencer Etzler (Coldwater – Stanford), Olivia Heitkamp (New Bremen – Toledo), Melina Schrader (New Bremen – University of Dayton), Keira Steininger (New Bremen – University of Georgia), Paige Jones (New Bremen – Michigan) and Jonni Parker (Miami East – Penn State), among others.  Oldenburg, like any good salesperson, welcomes the opportunity for increased visibility on a platform willing to invest in her sport.

“Delighted that you’re here,”  she concluded her meeting last week.  And I think she meant it, the same as I think when I talk with Diana Kramer.  And no kidding, there are so many similarities.  Which isn’t bad.

Just One Look…is all she asks!