Former Northern Michigan volleyball standout Sarah Kuehn returned to the Green and Gold as a full-time assistant coach in January 2023.
Well-known to the NMU volleyball community where she played from 2017-19 and was a volunteer assistant from 2020-21, Kuehn has spent the last two seasons as an assistant at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, and Division I Rice University in Houston.
Kuehn spent 2022 as a volunteer assistant coach at Rice University. She had an immediate impact on the volleyball program in her one year, helping guide the Owls to a 27-4 record, a seven-win improvement from the previous season. Rice won the conference tournament championship and finished the season at No. 19 in the AVCA poll and with a No. 15 rating in the NCAA RPI. Two student-athletes earned AVCA All-American honors with five being honored as All-Conference.
At. St. Mary’s, she was an assistant coach where the team compiled a 14-11 record and had three All-Conference selections.
Kuehn’s tenure at Northern Michigan both as a student-athlete and volunteer assistant is full of achievements. In the 2021 season, she helped coach the Wildcats to a regular season title as well as a GLIAC tournament victory. Five student-athletes earned All-Conference honors, and NMU also had the league’s Freshman of the Year in Jacqueline Smith.
Before moving to the coaching chairs, Kuehn was a three-year standout in Green and Gold, finishing her career ranked seventh all-time with 352 total blocks. She amassed 54 solo blocks and 298 block assists while adding 774 kills. Kuehn was named the team's Most Valuable Player after the 2018 season along with earning All-GLIAC Second Team honors after averaging 1.03 blocks per set to finish third in the league. She earned All-GLIAC Honorable Mention Team honors in her first season at NMU and was named the team's Newcomer of the Year.
Kuehn began her collegiate playing career at Minnesota State University and graduated from De Pere High School where she earned all-conference recognition while playing volleyball, basketball, softball, and track and field. From Green Bay, Wisconsin, she graduated with a secondary science education degree. She also served as a student teacher in New Zealand, however, her time was cut short due to the pandemic.
