Upper Iowa University Athletics

Aaron Nelson enters his thirteenth season in 2023-24 as the head coach of the Upper Iowa volleyball program. Nelson joined the staff near the beginning of the 2011 calendar year as an assistant and was promoted to Head Coach following the season.
 
During his 12-year tenure at the helm, Nelson has led the Peacocks to an overall record of 172-149, along with several program-best achievements. Under the tutelage of Nelson, Upper Iowa volleyball has seen their first record over .500 (2011), their first winning season with a 16-13 mark (2012), their first NSIC Tournament trip (2017), the school record for wins in a season at 21-9 (2017) and most recently, a program high for conference wins in a season with 13-7 mark (2021). 
 
As Upper Iowa departs with the Northern Sun Conference, the volleyball program exits with a 100-120 mark under Nelson. During that time period, he boasted 18 All-NSIC athletes, one of them earning both Honorable Mention AVCA All-American and AVCA All-Central Region honors.

Prior to becoming a Peacock, Nelson was an assistant coach with the 2010 National Champion Golden Bears of Concordia University, St. Paul.

He is a native of Austin, Minnesota, and prior to his year at Concorda-St. Paul, he had been the assistant coach with St. Cloud State University since March 2007 and was SCSU’s interim head coach from November 2009 through March 2010.

Before joining St. Cloud State, Nelson was the head coach at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa for the 2005 and 2006 seasons, where his teams compiled a 37-32 overall record, and made two straight GPAC post-season tournament appearances.
 
Nelson has 20 years of volleyball coaching experience under his belt thanks to assistant coaching stays with South Dakota State University, Northern Michigan University, the University of North Dakota and University of Minnesota Crookston.

Nelson earned both a bachelor's degree in Psychology and master's degree in Exercise Science from St. Cloud State University.  He played volleyball at SCSU as a member of the men’s club volleyball team in 1994, 1998 and 1999.

Aaron Nelson: Year-by-Year at Upper Iowa (172-149, 100-120 NSIC, 12 seasons)