Fred Lin enters his first season as assistant coach on the women's volleyball team in April 2026. Lin has served in many capacities before Manhattan. His most recent coaching stop was at Fordham University, helping the team with game prep and offense. Before returning to the East Coast, Lin coached at College of Marin, taking their beach program’s top pair to the school’s first state championship. Before Marin, Lin was promoted to head coach at Dominican University of California, shepherding the program out of the COVID-19 shut down and winning three consecutive AVCA All-Academic Team Awards. Lin also coached for a year at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and was instrumental in the transition from independent to joining the Coast 2 Coast conference.
Prior to returning to college coaching at Santa Cruz, Lin worked for a decade in the Bay Area’s tech industry with multiple start-up and Fortune 500 companies. He often shared the knowledge gained from his business experiences with his student-athletes, preparing them for their post-athletic career transition. He also volunteered his time at Notre Dame De Namur, Cal State Hayward, and camps at Stanford and Berkeley. Lin stayed connected with the sport by coaching at local volleyball clubs and sent over 75 athletes to play at various college levels.
As a fan of the sport, Lin started down his coaching path at the age of 19, leading both men’s and women’s club volleyball teams at the University of Michigan. He was a volunteer coach for the Michigan Wolverines for 7 years while coaching at a local high school, winning multiple Regional Coach of the Year awards. Lin was named head coach of Hillsdale College in 1993 and took the team to the NIT tournament the following year, finishing in 3rd place. He then became a graduate assistant at Eastern Kentucky in 1996, introducing swing blocking to the sport. Lin finished the first half of his coaching career at Villanova, helping the team to reach its first-ever NCAA post-season tournament.
Lin attended the University of Michigan and received his BA in business administration from Cleary University. He also earned his USA Volleyball CAP III in 1997. Lin now resides in New Jersey and has a daughter in Santa Cruz, CA.
