page_title: Pittsburgh Panthers women's volleyball
section_title: Mike Hebert years
hierarchical_section_title: Pittsburgh Panthers women's volleyball / History / Mike Hebert years
caption_attribution_description: The 1978 Pitt Panther volleyball team of the University of Pittsburgh was the school's first volleyball team to win the EAIWA Eastern Regional Championship and advance to the collegiate volleyball national championships, then held by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, where they finished 13th in the nation.
context_page_description: Pittsburgh Panthers women's volleyball is the NCAA Division I intercollegiate volleyball program of the University of Pittsburgh, often referred to as "Pitt", located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Pitt volleyball team competes in the Atlantic Coast Conference and plays their home games in Fitzgerald Field House. Since the founding of the volleyball program in 1974, the Panthers have had a winning season all but four years, have one of the nation's top all-time winning percentages, have appearanced in 18 national championship tournaments, and have won 14 conference championships including eleven as a member of the Big East Conference and three since joining the ACC.
context_section_description: Prior to the 1976 season, Mike Hebert, a former player at the UC-Santa Barbara who was teaching at Pitt, was asked by the university to coach the women's team although he'd never seen women play volleyball. He eventually accepted the part-time job to coach the up-start program for $1,500. Without many collegiate women's team sports in existence in the mid-1970s, Hebert and his team were pioneers who "invented things as [they] went along". Despite this, Herbert guided the Panthers to a fourth-place finish in the EAIAW championships during his first two seasons. Under his guidance, Pitt broke through to national prominence in 1978 winning the EAIAW Championship and advancing to the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) National Large College Volleyball Championships where they finished with a 2–3 record and a 13th place national finish en route to the program's first 40-win season. His part-time position turning full-time in his final season in 1979, which saw the Panthers successfully defend their EAIAW Championship and earn a return trip to the AIWA national championships. During this span he also collected EAIAW Eastern Region Coach of the Year awards at Pitt in 1978 and 1979. Herbert, who also served as an assistant coach for Pitt's men's team for the last two years of his stay in Pittsburgh, then left, citing family reasons, to take the head coaching job at the New Mexico, eventually coaching at Illinois and Minnesota; along the way winning multiple national championships, the national coach of the year award, and earning induction into the American Volleyball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
caption: The 1978 Pitt volleyball team, coached by Mike Hebert and playing home games at Trees Hall, was the school's first to win the Eastern regional championship and advance to the collegiate volleyball national championships, then held by the AIAW, where they finished 13th in the nation
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