Dawn Sullivan hopes to bring culture and tradition back to Mizzou volleyball

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

On Wednesday morning, Dawn Sullivan was introduced as the new Mizzou women's volleyball coach after the announcement on Sunday that she would take over the program.

"This place is rich in tradition," Sullivan said. "I played here and coached against Mizzou for many years. Maybe the last couple of years haven't been great, but when I took back, they've been to four sweet sixteens, they won two SEC championships. There's culture here, there's tradition, there's history here."

Watch the full press conference below.

Sullivan takes over the Tigers program after five seasons as the head coach at UNLV. She was also an All-America player at Kansas State and spent all but the last five years of her career in the Midwest with coaching stints at Iowa State and Illinois State.

Sullivan said Wednesday that she is all about building up the relationships within the program.

"They got to be willing to run through a wall for you," Sullivan said. "When you have those relationships built and they know that you care, they will go to battle and we will fight until no end, and that's what I've seen in the past."

As someone who has played games in the Hearnes Center against tough Mizzou teams, Sullivan is hoping to get the Mizzou program back to where it was at that time.

"I know what this place can be and when I look at it I know this is a special place and I can build it," Sullivan said.

Sullivan takes over Josh Taylor's program that has been at the bottom of the SEC for the past two seasons. Not only that, but Mizzou's offensive threats Kaylee Cox and Anna Dixon have both entered the transfer portal.

"You got to have people that want to be here and want to build for you," Sullivan said. "I'm going to go out and I'm going to find some people that want to be apart of a really good culture, a family culture."