By Heather Rule
Pedro Mendes has coached professional volleyball all over the world, and he’s coached collegiately in the Midwest, including multiple seasons at the University of Minnesota.
When the opportunity came about to lead the new women’s professional volleyball team in Minnesota as both a general manager and head coach, Mendes didn’t hesitate.
“It was a no-brainer,” Mendes said. “I had to take it, because it’s very unique.”
Mendes was named Wednesday as the general manager and head coach of MLV Minnesota, the new professional women’s volleyball team that will open league play for its inaugural season in January 2027. Major League Volleyball is the longest-running formal professional volleyball league for women in the United States.
Mendes, born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, started playing volleyball at 10 years old. After college, he played volleyball overseas in Portugal, France, Italy, Switzerland, Israel, “all over the place,” he said, for a professional playing career that spanned a decade.
He got his start coaching volleyball in 2019 as an assistant coach for professional women’s volleyball with Ezcasibasi Sports Club in Istanbul, Turkey. After a couple of years there, he took a head coaching job at Hylte/Halmstad Volley in Sweden for what he described as two successful seasons. He led the team to national and cup championships in 2021 and 2022.
“We accomplished a lot of great things there,” Mendes said. “We broke some records. We won national championships.”
Mendes and his wife, former University of Minnesota volleyball standout Lauren Gibbemeyer, moved back to her home state, and Mendes took an assistant coaching position with the Gophers in 2022 under then-head coach Hugh McCutcheon. Mendes spent a season there, coached as an assistant for a season at Northwestern University, then returned to the Gophers as an assistant coach from 2024-26. He helped guide the Gophers to a pair of Sweet 16 appearances in the NCAA Volleyball Tournament.
With the new opportunity to lead MLV Minnesota, Mendes returns to his roots of coaching professional volleyball. He’s excited about the impact he can have on a start-up franchise in Minnesota.
“I think that sometimes when you jump in on something that’s already going… it’s not the same when you’re starting it from the ground (up),” Mendes said. “I’m helping to build the budget for the team, helping to build a practice facility for the team. I’m literally starting from zero with a roster.”
Adding the general manager duties to his role, along with coaching, will get Mendes involved with the process of evaluating athletes and putting the pieces of the team’s puzzle together.
“That’s very exciting for me,” Mendes said. “I think that’s a very unique opportunity that you don’t find everywhere.”
As a coach, it’s the relationship piece that is one of the most important for Mendes. Athletes have established routines and know what they need to do in the weight room, he added, so “just earning the trust and making sure your athletes are seeing what you’re seeing” are big first steps, along with developing pieces of the technical game.
The coaching and general manager roles overlap a bit, Mendes said. He has the experience of a coach, telling the team manager what’s needed, and then the manager makes a necessary move. Now, instead of Mendes looking to collaborate with a manager, he’s that person.
He’s also keenly aware of how the Minnesota sports market embraces women’s sports, which includes the volleyball traditions collegiately and within clubs across the state. Being in a state which values women’s sports means a lot to Mendes, and to his wife, he said.
“We’ve got a daughter, too, that we want to continue that path,” Mendes said. “We wanted to do things to, of course, help the game grow and be in a state that has already those roots in place.”
Mendes and his wife have two children, daughter Skye, 4, and son Bruno, 2.
Mendes is impressed by the number of people who show up to watch volleyball in Minnesota, from club to the high school state tournament to the Gophers. He sees how big the sport is in the state, which includes the growth of boys’ high school volleyball.
“I’m pretty sure when they watch us play, they’ll see how big it is as well,” Mendes said. “Minnesotans are very passionate about sports. They watch sports, they play sports themselves.
“It is interesting to see how much is out there. It’s just impressive, that the market can have so many options and still, everybody does well.”