Staff Directory
- Title:
- Assistant Men's Volleyball Coach
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Christian Rupert will begin his second season as an assistant coach with the Cardinals. In just his first year at Ball State, Rupert helped the Cardinals to a 23-4 overall record, along with Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA) regular season and tournament titles.
The historic season continued in 2022 as the Cardinals made its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2002. The Cardinals earned the No. 2 seed in the event, as well as a bye into the national semifinals.
The 20-win season for Ball State was the first since the 2016 campaign. The Cardinals started the season off hot, earning back-to-back wins over defending national champion and then-No. 1 ranked Hawai'i. The Cardinals also secured a notable win on the road at then-No. 9 BYU this season.
In conference action, Rupert helped the Cardinals defeat Lewis on the road for the first time since 2010. BSU also swept the two-match season series versus its longest rival, Ohio State, for the first time since 2014.
Rupert came to Ball State after serving as a volunteer assistant coach for the Princeton Tigers. Princeton was 7-2 in the EIVA (Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) and registered the program’s first-ever win over UCLA, the No. 8 team in the country, before the 2020 season was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Tigers did not compete in 2021.
Prior to his coaching stint at Princeton, Rupert played professional volleyball in Croatia for Mladost Ribola Kaštela.
A native of Chalfont, Pennsylvania, where he attended Central Bucks High School West, Rupert was a middle blocker for BYU from 2015-2018. He helped the Cougars make appearances in the NCAA Championship match in 2016 and 2017 and reach the semifinals in 2018. Rupert was a member of three Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) regular season championships (2016, 2017, & 2018) and also won two MPSF Tournament titles (2016 & 2018).
"I am very excited and grateful for the opportunity to join the Ball State men’s volleyball program,” Rupert said. “I can’t wait to get to work with Coach Cruz, Coach Iandolo, and the Cardinals student-athletes to honor the tradition and high standards of the volleyball program’s storied history while striving to write exciting new chapters that will make the entire BSU community proud."
