A former star player at Long Beach State who was also a member of Team USA’s national pool, Alexis Crimes returns for her fourth season with Cal State LA’s volleyball program as the associate head coach after playing a big role in the program’s first-ever national championship in 2023.
Crimes has also taken on major roles in the athletic department, becoming Cal State LA’s Senior Women’s Administrator, the advisor for Cal State LA’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, and the liaison with housing and admissions. She represents Cal State LA at numerous conference, regional and national forums and has also been a major factor in improving the student-athlete experience at Cal State LA. She has helped organize the past three end-of-the year awards extravaganzas and is also the head coach for the beach volleyball program.
Crimes helped the Golden Eagles to a historic 2023 season. Cal State LA captured back-to-back California Collegiate Athletic Association and NCAA Division II West Region championships – the first time ever for repeat regional titles – and then capped off the season with a sensational run to the NCAA Division II Championship. The unranked Golden Eagles beat three top-five teams for the title after outlasting No. 4 Wayne State, No. 5 Missouri-St. Louis and No. 2 West Texas A&M. The Golden Eagles, who were the No. 6 seeds in the championship round, became the first unranked team in the final regular-season American Volleyball Coaches Association poll to win a national championship since the AVCA polls started in 1986.
In the spring, Crimes led the Golden Eagles through another challenging beach volleyball season, leading the Golden Eagles to a pair of wins over four-year universities.
In her first three years with the indoor program, Cal State LA is 69-28 overall and 44-10 in conference play.
Crimes helped the Golden Eagles to a sensational 2022 season that saw them claim CCAA and NCAA West Region championships and advance to the national semifinals. Cal State LA captured the fourth CCAA regular-season title in program history and had a 25-7 overall record, which was the most wins for the program since 2005. The Golden Eagles beat Gannon in the national quarterfinals in Seattle before falling to No. 1 seed Concordia-St. Paul in the semis.
Crimes helped the Golden Eagles to a tremendous 2021 season that was highlighted by a monumental win over defending national champion Cal State San Bernardino in the second round of the NCAA playoffs in her first year with the program. It was Cal State LA’s first playoff win over the Coyotes since 2004 and the Golden Eagles’ first win in San Bernardino since 2012.
With Crimes’ assistance, the Golden Eagles went 20-11 overall and finished the season ranked 24th in the nation by the American Volleyball Coaches Association.
Crimes also did an outstanding job with Cal State LA’s beach volleyball program in 2022. The Golden Eagles’ No. 1 pairs team of Ashley Dittmann and Iane Henke finished the season with a 12-3 record that included six wins over NCAA Division I teams.
Crimes was also a prominent face in the department as she spearheaded several special events throughout the year, including the 2022 Golden Espys, a Family Feud style competition and the Eddie Games, all of which featured student-athletes with help from Cal State LA’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.
After a sensational playing career, Crimes came to Cal State LA with some impressive coaching credentials. She coached at Texas A&M Corpus Christi as an assistant coach working with middle blockers and blocking defense in 2018-19 and she was also a coach for the USA High Performance A1 program in Florida in 2019 and was an assistant coach at Laguna Hills High School during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons.
In 2022, she coached the A4 Volleyball Club to the Girls’ Junior National Volleyball Championships in Indianapolis.
Crimes enjoyed a decorated playing career at Long Beach State and helped her team reach four consecutive NCAA Tournaments as well as win the 2005 Big West Championship. She is one of just seven players to earn first-team All-Big West Conference honors all four years and was the conference’s Co-Player of the Year as a junior. She was a four-time AVCA All-American and was named the AVCA West Region Freshman of the Year in 2004.
Crimes still holds the program’s career record for block assists with 494 and she ranks second in total blocks with 598, third in kills with 1,756, fourth in solo blocks with 104 and fifth in attack percentage at .364. During her junior year, she set the school’s single-match record by hitting .636 against Cal State Northridge, recording 21 kills on 33 attempts with no errors.
She was inducted into Long Beach State’s Hall of Fame in 2013.
After college, Crimes enjoyed a 10-year professional career beginning in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico and including stops in Vienna, Austria, Bielsko-Biala, Poland, Bergamo, Italy, Azerbaijan, Baku and Sariver, Turkey.
She was also an alternate on the United States 2016 Olympic team in Rio de Janeiro and was a member of Team USA’s national team, working with the program from 2009-16.
Crimes graduated from Long Beach State with a degree in criminal justice and earned her Master’s degree at Long Beach State as well in 2010 while graduating Magna Cum Laude.
