Men’s volleyball head coach Shane Davis enters his 15th season at Loyola Chicago in 2027.
Davis and his staff led the Ramblers to their second consecutive, fifth overall, NCAA National Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Championship appearance in 2026. In the new 12-team expansion era, Loyola secured the program’s first NCAA tournament win since 2015 with a 3-0 sweep of Saint Francis (Pa.) to advance to the regional finals against Long Beach State.
The Ramblers finished 21-9 overall and 12-4 in Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA) play. Loyola defeated Hawai’i, 3-1, for its first win of the year (Jan. 9). Four months later, the Maroon and Gold were the MIVA Tournament runners-up, making consecutive championship appearances. Five Ramblers earned all-conference honors, three of whom went on to be American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) All-Americans.
Off the court, Loyola shined in the classroom as the entire team earned Academic All-MIVA accolades, and junior Aidan Klein tabbed a spot on the College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District Team.
In November 2024, Davis returned to Rogers Park for his 21st all-time season as a head coach and his 13th at Loyola. The four-time MIVA Coach of the Year and 2014 AVCA Coach of the Year piloted the Ramblers to three straight NCAA Final Four appearances between 2013 and 2015, clinching two consecutive national championships in '14 and '15. Davis remains the winningest coach in program history with a 310-101 (.754) career record.
In his first season back at the helm of the program, Davis led the men's volleyball team to its fourth MIVA Tournament Championship, winning nine straight sets to do so. It resulted in the squad's first NCAA Tournament berth since 2015. Under his leadership, the Ramblers finished with their best conference record (13-3) in 10 years and marked the first 20-win regular season since 2023, culminating in Loyola's eighth overall regular season championship title.
Davis coached four AVCA All-Americans in his first year back at the bench – First Teamer Parker Van Buren, Second Team selections Nicodemus Meyer and Daniel Fabikovic, and Honroable Mention Ryan McElligott, who finished as the NCAA and MIVA assists leader. The same four Ramblers were also named to the All-MIVA First Team, which is a program-best since 2018. Van Buren, the MIVA Tournament MVP, was named the back-to-back MIVA Player of the Year, becoming the second Rambler ever to do so.
During his previous tenure at Loyola from 2003 to 2015, Davis produced 43 All-MIVA picks, four of whom were MIVA Players of the Year, and 12 All-Americans, including two Olympic bronze medalists. Thomas Jaeschke ('15) and Jeff Jendryk ('18) earned bronze in the 2024 Paris Olympics; Jaeschke previously won bronze at the 2016 Olympics. In 2015, Jaeschke was named the AVCA National Player of the Year and Jendryk was the AVCA Newcomer of the Year.
Hailing from Denver, Iowa, Davis was an exceptional member of Loyola's men's volleyball team from 2000 to 2003, during which he set a school record for career assists (5,337), and reached second place in program history in career digs (723). Davis was named Loyola's 2003 Male Athlete of the Year.
As a freshman, he recorded 1,528 assists in a single season, good for third all-time, and was named MIVA Freshman of the Year in addition to grabbing All-MIVA Third Team honors. He received All-MIVA First Team honors in each of the next three seasons and was also an AVCA Second Team All-American selection in 2003.
Davis led Loyola to 78 wins in his collegiate career, highlighted by a 24-6 season in 2002 when the Ramblers reached the MIVA Tournament championship match for just the third time in school history. He was the first men's volleyball student-athlete or coach to be inducted into the Loyola Athletics Hall of Fame (2018).
After 12 seasons at Loyola, Davis left for Northwestern where he spent eight seasons as the head women's volleyball coach. Davis' first two Wildcat recruiting classes ranked 22nd and 18th, respectively, with the 2017 season squad posting the best hitting percentage in program history.
His 2022 recruiting class ranked seventh in the country, marking the highest ranked recruiting class in Northwestern women's volleyball history. In every season since he took over in 2016, the Wildcats had an outside hitter rank top five in the Big Ten in kills per set.
Davis and his wife, Andrea, are the proud parents of daughters Sydney, Jordyn and Riley.
