Martin Umeh
Martin Umeh has played and coached volleyball at numerous local (200+) and national (10+) level tournaments, and played at the AA level in Northern California for 15+ years before retiring from competitive play in 2005. He also played extensively on the outdoor grass doubles volleyball circuit in AA and Pro tournaments. He has run clinics, workshops, leagues, and coached youth and adult women’s USAV teams (for 10 years). He coached San Francisco State University Men’s, and most recently served as a volunteer assistant coach for California High School volleyball (both boys and girls). He also ran the Clubsport Pleasanton (now Bay Club Pleasanton) Volleyball training program from 2005 to 2020. He started Elemisha Volleyball in 2009.
In his daily life, Martin manages a sales and engineering team in the factory automation and robotics space. In his spare time, he also provides classroom and in-car instruction at high performance driving and teen driver safety events in Northern and Central California.
Devin Grant
The mastermind behind coaching and curriculum planning for our program, Devin Grant was most recently the head women’s volleyball coach at NDNU, a local private university. Before that, he coached at several schools in the Bay Area, such as Urban HS, St. Ignatius HS, Menlo High School, City College of San Francisco, and San Francisco State University. He is currently the club director and head coach for the XL Jr’s volleyball program. Devin also played Men’s indoor volleyball, competing at the AA Gold level as a standout setter. He has a total of more than 25 years coaching experience at the juniors, high school, and collegiate level.
In his daily life, Devin is a principal stakeholder in a number of businesses, including restaurants, and apparel sales and licensing.
Bryan Ding
Bryan Ding started playing volleyball with our Volleykids program in 2009. He has been with us every year both as a student and then an instructor. He is a student of the game and a natural born libero, but excels in all phases of the game. He has become an integral part of the Elemisha scenery and has been involved since its inception in 2009.
In his daily life, Bryan is a graduate of UCSD Environmental Engineering program and works in the factory automation and robotics space as a support engineer. He is also an avid chef and gamer.
Cydney Vicentina
Cydney has been playing volleyball for over a decade - it all started when she was a tiny freshman trying out for her high school's JV team. She was immediately picked up and trained as a setter and played three years on the varsity squad.
In college, Cydney mainly played casually, participating in UCLA's IM tournaments and going to open gym practice. Nowadays, you can often find her playing outdoors at various volleyball meetup events.
Cydney works as a senior product designer for Simple HealthKit, an at-home health test company, and enjoys drinking copious amounts of boba.
Jorja Burbano
Jorja started playing volleyball in 8th Grade. She was exposed to outdoor volleyball in high school, and fell in love with the sport even more. Jorja played as a libero/DS for Granada High School and enjoyed her senior season in 2022. She plans to continue playing volleyball in college at USF!
In her daily life, Jorja enjoys playing volleyball, karaoke, reading lots of books, and metalworking.
Moses Gang
Moses started playing volleyball when he first attended Elemisha while in middle school. He quickly became hooked on the extremely competitive nature of volleyball, and has always relished every battle for every point. In high school, Moses played for Dublin High team as an outside hitter. His hobbies include playing video games, playing various musical instruments, and playing volleyball with every chance he gets.
Moses is attending UC Riverside for Mechanical Engineering.
Nolan Sachs
Nolan started playing volleyball in ninth grade for California High School. His first experience playing outdoor volleyball was in 2022 when he joined Elemisha. Since then, he's become even more of a volleyball fanatic and plans to continue playing when he goes off to Cal Poly to study Computer Engineering. Outside of volleyball, he's recently become an Eagle Scout and enjoys playing video games.
Alena Dinh
Alena has been playing volleyball for ever since middle school. She played for her local middle school, was part of Elemisha since age 12, played on the DHS Varsity squad as a libero and OH, and played club volleyball for NorCal. She loves playing the game because of the quick pace and teamwork involved. In her free time, she likes to spend time with her friends and family and go explore a new food spot.
Alena will be attending UC Riverside to study Business Administration.
Chris Ding
Chris has been active with the Elemisha program since 2011, which is where he started playing volleyball. After developing his outdoor volleyball fundamentals, he transitioned to indoor volleyball in 2014 and played for MVVC, Academy Volleyball Club, and Carlmont High School. As an outside hitter, Chris loves to play grass and beach doubles because of the wide range of skills needed to excel in outdoor volleyball. He has won multiple Elemisha end-of-the-year tournaments, and is looking forward to coaching the young players coming through our program. Chris’ involvement in the program has grown over the last few years, and his responsibilities now include training and development planning in addition to coaching.
Chris played outside hitter for the UC Berkeley Men’s club volleyball team from 2018-2021, and graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Data Science and Economics.
In his daily life, he is a data analyst for a tech company on the peninsula. In his free time, he also enjoys playing volleyball at local gyms, playing basketball, gaming, and listening to music.
Jane Burgan
Jane has been involved in our program in various ways since 2011. She started playing volleyball with the Elemisha program in 7th grade, where she and her best friend Nika made a splash by winning their pool in our first tournament as the absolute YOUNGEST players by 2-3 years. Through our program she fell in love with the sport and continued to play club volleyball for four years as an outside hitter/defense specialist. At Amador Valley high school, she played on varsity for three years. She is excited to share her enthusiasm and passion for volleyball with this year’s players.
Jane graduated from UCLA with a degree in neuroscience, and is currently enrolled in medical school at Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University.
Coaching for Elemisha Volleyball
We are always on the lookout for individuals who LOVE coaching volleyball and want to impart a positive volleyball message to our athletes. If you are interested in coaching with us, please contact us directly.