A native of nearby Boardman, Joe Conroy served as the Youngstown State volleyball coach from 1992-2004.
It was a winding path for Conroy to make his return to the Youngstown area. He was a standout all-around athlete at Boardman High School. He had an outstanding football career at Toledo. A passion for volleyball took him out to California where he honed his skills for the sport.
Conroy was interested in playing volleyball and strength training his entire life. Those two passions led him to YSU and upon his return to the Mahoning Valley in 1985, he accepted the dual role of strength and conditioning coach/assistant volleyball coach under the late John McKenna at YSU.
He became YSU’s volleyball head coach in 1992 after McKenna’s untimely death and for the next 13 years took the program to uncharted heights.
Conroy went on to become YSU’s all-time winningest volleyball coach with 188 overall victories, inheriting a program that was struggled to play .500 ball while turning it into a perennial power in the former Mid-Continent Conference.
He proceeded to guide his troops to four 20-win seasons, their only 20-win seasons in the history of the school. Under his tutelage they won one Mid-Continent Conference Championship and one Mid-Continent Conference East Division crown while posting a program-best 27-5 overall mark in 1999.
From 1994-2000, Conroy was named the Mid-Continent Conference Coach of the Year on four separate occasions - 1994, 1995, 1998, and 1999.
In 1999, he earned his final coach-of-the-year honor by leading the Penguins to a 13-1 conference mark and the school’s first league win over national power Oral Roberts. The win snapped ORU’s 29-game conference winning streak, and during his tenure as volleyball coach, he led his teams to wins over West Virginia, Pittsburgh and North Carolina State.
Under his direction, eight former standouts eclipsed the 1,000-career kills plateau while from 1994-2000, at least one of Conroy’s players earned First-Team All-Conference laurels.
Overall, Conroy developed nine First-Team All-Conference selections; eight Second-Team picks; a conference Player of the Year; a national Defensive Player of the Year as well as a conference Newcomer of the Year.
Six former players have also been inducted into YSU's Athletics Hall of Fame.
In 2001, he guided the Penguins during their first season of competition in the highly-competitive Horizon League.
After 13 seasons as the school’s head volleyball coach and 20 years within the athletics department, he accepted the coordinator of facilities and programs position at YSU’s Andrews Student Recreation and Wellness Center where he served as its Intramural Director until his retirement in 2019.
A 1974 Boardman High School graduate, earning three letters in football for the Spartans from 1971-73 under former head coach Jim Orr.
As a senior, he was named to the Steel Valley Conference First-Team, lettering in basketball and track & field as well.
A former walk-on who later earned a full-scholarship to the University of Toledo, he earned four letters for the Rockets from 1974-78.
As a freshman, he started all 11 games on defense at middle guard, posting 105 total tackles and an interception before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury that would force him to redshirt and miss his entire sophomore campaign.
As a sophomore in 1976, his 126 tackles ranked third on the team as he registered 11 tackles for loss and two more interceptions.
His junior campaign saw him post 126 total tackles, including nine for loss while as a senior in 1978, his move to defensive end was noteworthy as he responded with 133 tackles (including 16 for loss), was elected team captain and was named to the Mid-American Conference’s First-Team defensive unit.
For his overall play he earned the Nicholson Trophy, given to the Rocket gridder who contributes most to the team’s overall success.
In all, his 490 career tackles still ranks him second all-time in UT grid history while his 39 tackles for loss place are still sixth overall in that category.
While at UT, he played four years for the Rocket volleyball club team (he originally got interested in the sport through his father, Joe, Sr., when he played at the Youngstown Main YMCA) when he was noticed by an instructor in a volleyball class.
He earned First-Team club tournament honors during each of his four years with the club (1976-79) and was so advanced in his skills that he was invited to an Olympic Volleyball team tryout (held in Dayton) in 1978, which was conducting try-outs for the 1980 U.S. Olympic Volleyball squad.
Despite his size (he was only 5' 11" tall), he had a vertical leap of 44 inches and was a powerful, dominant spiker. Of the 172 players invited from around the country, Conroy made it down to the final 16 players before being cut.
His dream of becoming an Olympic volleyball team member, however, might have ended in Dayton as the U.S. would eventually boycott the upcoming 1980 Olympic Games.
His volleyball interest only grew after graduation (he earned his undergraduate degree in communications in 1979 from UT) and in the early 1980’s, moved to Southern California where he played on the beach volleyball circuit.
He and his wife Mariame are the parents of three children; daughters Emily and Allison, and son Joey. They reside in Columbia, S.C.
