Greg LaLonde

Greg is the City of Lakes Club Director and also the coach of the 15-Blue and 17-Blue teams. As Club Directory, Greg oversees and is responsible for all aspects of the club program. Greg can be reached at greg_lalo@yahoo.com or 612-920-8560.

A former USVA (United States Volleyball Association) player -- middle blocker/setter/right side opposite - - and a regionally ranked United States Tennis Association tennis player as an adult, Greg began coaching volleyball in 1984 at Minneapolis Southwest High School. Since that time Greg has helped coach Holy Angels Academy to the 1994 state tournament semifinals, coached the Minneapolis South High School girls volleyball teams for four years - 1995-1998 - which included South's first-ever city conference title in 1995, followed by 3 more consecutive conference titles, and in 1996 helped take South to the region volleyball finals, the only Minneapolis conference school to reach the finals since 1985. Greg's experience with Junior Olympic volleyball began in 1991, head coaching the Lakeville Gold 16's, Prior Lake JO's 1993-95, helping form the first-ever Minneapolis-based Junior Olympic volleyball club, and coaching Minneapolis South JO teams from 1996-2001.

Before coaching girls volleyball, in a previous, more Bohemian existence, Greg was heavily invested in the Minneapolis-St. Paul performing arts community, working for 10 years locally as a professional musician (percussionist - pop, rock, show, rhythm & blues, U of M small jazz ensemble), in the 1970's for 2 years as a member of the University of Minnesota Modern Dance Repertory Company (a student of Nancy Hauser and Molly Lynn), and later as a member of St. Paul's Caravan Dance Collective, performing as an independent dancer-choreographer at such venues as the Guthrie II Experimental Lab, the Walker Art Center's Choreographer's Evenings, and appearing in 1973 with New York City's Don Redlich Dance Company at Northrup Auditorium. In the late 1970's Greg also worked as a Title IX teacher in the city of St. Paul's federally funded, then-groundbreaking Dance in Education program. Greg's modest (and only) real claim to fame, however, is a brief stint studying Etienne Decroux mime technique with a then unknown actress from northern Minnesota, Jessica Lange - - before she became a blonde.

A lifelong resident of Linden Hills, in southwest Minneapolis, Greg is commmitted to furthering the development of girls volleyball in the city. Greg is an author and researcher in local and regional history, and the primary writer and contributor to the Linden Hills History Exhibit, extant on the main floor lobby, under Tom Ellison Architects on West 43rd Street, adjacent to Cafe 28. Beginning his research in 1995, Greg has recently completed a manuscript currently agented in New York City, which is a history of the American Theater. In 2005 he began work on another manuscript, "New Ulm Burning", a history of the 1862 Dakota Conflict.