She has led the York University Lions women’s volleyball program since 2018, and now head coach Jennifer Neilson will lead the next generation of Ontarian high performance athletes after she was named head coach of Team Ontario’s indoor volleyball program for the 2025 Canada Summer Games in St. John’s, Nfld.
“It’s a privilege and an honour to be selected for this role and be the first female coach in several cycles,” said Neilson. “I see it as an opportunity to inspire women in coaching, and an opportunity to support young women in Ontario. The goal is to build off past cycles and support these young women to be champions both on and off the court.”
Neilson has coached at all levels of the Canadian high-performance pathway. Prior to joining the Lions, Neilson had a heavy involvement with the Ontario Volleyball Association (OVA).
She began her journey with the OVA as the high-performance apprentice coach while also coaching at the club level with the Halton Hurricanes for 2017-18. She then moved on to become a head coach of Team Ontario Red in 2018 where she led the team to the Canada Cup competition.
She then made the jump to the national programming, transitioning to the national team as a guest coach with the youth national team in 2019.
“Since I got into coaching, it has been a goal of mine to lead a cycle of players and develop the province’s most elite,” she said. “This gives me that opportunity, and I’m so excited to get to work.”
Neilson will begin the process of leading the program in the new year, when scouting for roster selection begins. The team will begin to prepare as a group for the Canada Games in the following calendar year.