Robbie Belden begins his sixth season "On The Banks" as an assistant coach with the rising Rutgers volleyball program.
Since joining the staff, Belden has helped the Scarlet Knights to numerous program first and bests including the most wins in the Big Ten since joining the nation's top conference, the team's first-ever Big Ten All-Conference honorees, the team's first-ever All-Big Ten attacker and an attendance record. While on the sideline, the program has established new team, season and match records for aces and reset program Big Ten game bests in kills, attempts, attack percentage and assists and individual conference superlatives in attack percentage, kills, assists, digs and solo blocks.
The Scarlet Knights continued to put up several notable career and season numbers in 2024. On the attack, RU's Alissa Kinkela, the squad's first-ever All-Big Ten attacker, cracked the top 10 all-time in career kills, the second most rally-era career kills and the third most rally-era career kills per set. Additionally, Rutgers put nine entries into the rally-era individual season top 10 records with a new benchmark set for blocks in a rally-era season from Natalie Robinson and Lexi Visintine just two aces shy of setting a season record.
On the sidelines in 2023, Rutgers captured the most wins and best nonconference record since 2012 as the Scarlet Knights collected the most kills and most digs as a program since 2012, the highest serve percentage since 2016 and the most assists since 2018. Rutgers saw a 45% increase in set victories over the previous season while placing 12 entries into the rally-era individual season top 10 records, 13 entries into the rally-era team top 10 records while collecting the most sets played, kills, assists, assists per set, digs and solo blocks by a team in conference play since joining the Big Ten in 2014.
Prior to arriving at Rutgers, Belden served as an assistant with current Scarlet Knight head coach Caitlin Schweihofer at Northeastern. and also spent two seasons as an assistant coach at Campbell University. With the Camels, he directed the offensive attack while also handling recruiting, team travel and scouting. In 2017, he helped guide Campbell to its first 20-win since 1998 with a 20-12 overall record along with the program's first postseason berth to the National Invitational Volleyball Championship.
Belden also gained experience as a volunteer assistant coach at UConn for two seasons, training the setters along with offensive game planning, team travel and scouting, and was an assistant coach at the University of Hartford helping the Hawks to their first winning record in over 20 seasons.
During his stints at both UConn and Hartford, Belden served as the head coach for the Husky Volleyball Club with four of his squads in the U15-17 group qualifying for junior nationals.
Scholastically, Belden played volleyball at Glastonbury High School where he was a setter and earned all-state honors during his senior year. He also played four seasons of club volleyball at UConn and served as the club's president for three years.
A 2011 graduate of UConn with a degree in political science, Belden obtained his Master's in athletic administration from Springfield College in 2015.
