WSU Associate Head Coach Burdette Greeny brings a driven competitive nature and a dynamic intensity as both a coach and the lead recruiter to the Cougars volleyball program.
“Burdette has emerged as one of the best recruiting coordinators in the country and it definitely shows with the amount of talent and character in his recruiting classes,” Cougar Head Coach Jen Greeny said. “The recruits have said Burdette is easy and fun to talk to, is an amazing communicator, and is extremely passionate about Washington State and Pullman. Burdette cares not only about a player’s skills in the recruiting process but also about everyone and if they will fit in with our team’s core values.”
Greeny recently completed his 12th season with the Cougars in 2022 and has been instrumental in WSU's seven consecutive NCAA tournament appearances. He joined the Cougar volleyball program in March 2011 as an assistant coach and was promoted to Associate Head Coach in February 2017. Washington State has since finished the season in the AVCA Top-25 in four of the last five years including each of the past three seasons.
With a coaching style that emphasizes serving, passing and defense, the Cougars have finished in the top 50 in the NCAA in blocks per set each of the past nine seasons including the third-best mark in Division I volleyball back in 2016 (3.23 b/s). Washington State finished the 2022 season with the 16th-best team hitting percentage (.280) in the nation, the second-best all-time mark in Cougar volleyball history.
Greeny has consistently brought in top-level recruiting talent with some of the Cougars’ most highly touted classes raising the level of play in recent years. Pia Timmer and Magda Jehlarova each joined the WSU volleyball roster prior to the start of the 2019 season and have each grown into perennial all-conference performers. The pair were instrumental to WSU’s seventh-straight NCAA Tournament appearance in 2022 after a 14-6 Pac-12 season, the most conference wins in program history. WSU was one of only 15 programs in the nation to have two top 25 and one honorable mention recruiting class between 2013 and 2015. The 2013 and 2015 recruiting classes are two of the highest-ranked recruiting classes ever in any sport at WSU. Among Greeny’s WSU recruits are six PrepVolleyball.com Top 100 players and two Gatorade State Players of the Year.
A leader in DI volleyball recruiting, Greeny and the WSU coaching staff have also been successful in using the NCAA transfer portal to build their roster of talented student-athletes who also fit the culture of Cougar volleyball. WSU volleyball has added multiple starters in recent off-seasons, including Iman Isanovic, an honorable mention all-Pac-12 selection, prior to the start of the 2023 season. Greeny also helped recruit Laura Jansen, an All-Sun Belt selection before committing to WSU, who went on to earn Pac-12 all-conference honors after one season on the Palouse. The Cougars also added starting libero, Karly Basham, to their roster as a transfer prior to the start of the 2021 season.
The first high school recruit signed by Greeny was libero Kate Sommer who broke WSU’s career digs record with 1,954 digs. Among the 2013 recruiting class, which was the first real recruiting class for the Greenys, ranked 14th-best nationally, was Kyra Holt who became an honorable mention AVCA All-American, All-Pacific North Region and two-time All-Pac-12 selection. Holt also found success later as a professional player and is one of six players that Greeny has coached who have gone on to play professionally.
Middle blockers Taylor Mims and Claire Martin were signees in the 21st-best national recruiting class in 2015. As sophomores in 2016, Mims and Martin each finished in the Top-25 nationally in blocks per set and total blocks. Greeny was integral to the recruitment and development of these front row players who became one of the elite blocking units in the nation. In 2016 WSU was number two in team total blocks behind national champion Stanford and third-best nationally in team blocks per set, a significant factor to WSU finishing fourth among all Power 5 conference schools and 26th overall in opponent hitting percentage. In 2017, the Cougars were sixth-best nationally in team total blocks and 11th in team blocks per set.
Casey Schoenlein and McKenna Woodford became the first Cougar volleyball players be named to a US National Team since 1997. Their CNT-Europe squad, with Coach Jen Greeny on the coaching staff, won the gold medal at the 2016 Global Challenge Tournament in Croatia (the first for a US National Team in the twelve years of the tournament). In 2017 CNT-Europe repeated as champions at the Global Challenge and Mims was an all-tournament selection. Woodford played on the 2017 CNT-Thailand team and Schoenlein was on the CNT-Minneapolis squad. Jocelyn Urias was on the Mexican National Team at the FIVB Grand Prix bringing WSU’s total to four 2017 players on national teams, second only to the University of Texas for current players on national teams.
Burdette Greeny assisted his wife Jen at Lewis-Clark State College from 2007-10 as an assistant coach. He was one of 20 assistant coaches nominated for the 2009 NAIA National Assistant Coach of the Year Award. He was promoted to Associate Head Coach at LCSC in 2010. Greeny’s recruiting resume at LCSC included three junior college first team all-Americans, one second team all-American, one Gatorade State Player of the Year, two state players of the year, and 12 first team all-state selections. In four years, 37 total LCSC players were named to the conference all-academic teams and seven players were recognized as NAIA Volleyball National Scholar-Athletes.
Greeny was an all-league selection in both basketball and baseball at Port Angeles (Wash.) High School. He was named one of the top ten pitchers in the state by Tacoma News Tribune (1993) and was drafted by the New York Mets, but instead played basketball and baseball at Tacoma Community College (1993-95). He earned second-team All-West Region honors both years as a third baseman and set a school record with 17 strikeouts in one game. He pitched for WSU in 1997, winning the team’s award for strength and conditioning. He later signed as a free agent with the Milwaukee Brewers before the 1998 draft and was with the organization for two seasons.
Greeny earned a degree in humanities with an emphasis in English from WSU in 1999. From 2000 through 2007, he was the head coach in the Pullman American Legion Baseball organization where his teams won two regular season titles, one district title, and made the first appearance by a Pullman team at the state tournament since 1968. He tallied the first state tourney win in the program’s 60-year history and saw 88 percent of his American Legion players continue their careers at the collegiate level. Greeny spearheaded the development of the Palouse Summer Series which brings to Pullman some of the best amateur select and American Legion teams in the state and Canada. He was the recipient of the 2005 Pullman Chamber of Commerce STAR (Supporting Tourism and Recreation) Award.
Burdette and Jen Greeny were honored in 2015 with a City of Pullman Chamber of Commerce Walk of Fame plaque. They have two daughters, Lauren and Leah.
