Reusse: Under Thanh Pham’s guidance, St. Thomas volleyball embraces ‘inner-Tommie’ to D-I postseason play

Cole Tallman had resigned as the St. Thomas volleyball coach after the 2002 season and athletic director Steve Fritz was looking for a replacement. He also had another decade remaining as the Tommies’ very successful coach in men’s basketball, so he was willing to take suggestions from within the Twin Cities and the MIAC.

“A number of the volleyball people told me, ‘Take a look at a young guy who was at Augsburg,’” Fritz said Saturday. “That was Thanh [Pham]. You meet him and very soon you’re saying, ‘Great person; hard worker.’”

Pham was 27 years removed from being boosted into a large military helicopter by his father, Yen, helped in along with his mother, Xuan, and two siblings, in a desperate departure in the final hours of the Fall of Saigon in late April 1975.

“I don’t remember much,” Pham said with a slight smile on Thursday. “I was 3 months old and in my mother’s arms.”

They were not allowing men on that helicopter, so Yen stayed behind — hoping to get out later before being captured as a member of the South Vietnam military, and presumably meeting the fate that did so many at the hands of the North Vietnamese conquerors.

“Our dad got out by boat,” Thanh said this week. “Back in ’75, of course, there were no cell phones, no registry of the refugees on this island, no way of knowing, and my mother somehow walked into a tent and saw my father.

“My dad still has friends who never found their families in the same circumstance.”

“I’d like to see Mom again,” Fritz said. “Very nice person — and a tremendous cook."

When you start off as an infant escaping the Fall of Saigon, Pham’s entry into volleyball coaching might not qualify as dramatic, but it certainly was circuitous.

He had played some volleyball with informal clubs, although wrestling was what got him to Augsburg in the mid-1990s.

“Jeff Swenson was my coach,” Pham said. “You won’t find any better one if you’re a competitor.”

Swenson lifted a strong Augsburg wrestling program to greatness, became the athletic director and is now working in the president’s office mainly as a fundraiser.

“Thanh was a scrappy and driven wrestler,’’ Swenson said. “He did everything that was asked of him. And he’s a better person — kind and humble. Top-notch, first-class human being. He’s one of my all-time favorites."

As with many students at the true-urban private school, Pham needed a job and he found it on campus: working as an assistant for Marilyn Florian, the Augsburg volleyball coach.

“Coach Florian gave me a start with volleyball,” Pham said. “I will be forever grateful to her.”

That led to the required experience to apply at St. Thomas, which led to 17 seasons in the MIAC and Division III with much success. Included was a 40-1 record and a national championship in 2012.

Talk about balance: Kelly Foley and Paige Brimeyer were All-Americas, Jill Greenfield was named the top player in the finals, and Kia Johnson was honored for the highest grade point among competitors in the Division III tournament.

Pham mentioned this quality when talking about the recent 2026 recruiting class — four athletes, including Maddy Jones, a 6-foot middle blocker from Eagle High outside of Meridian, Idaho.

“I believe everyone has an inner Tommie, and I could see that Maddy found hers on her visit,” he said.

It took some strong belief for the athletes starting in 2020: first there was the pandemic, then there was the Tommies’ historic transition from Division III to Division I. For me, there is no team sport where luck plays less of a factor than volleyball — and that’s the college women’s game that we see regularly.

A few good bounces aren’t going to get a team to 25 points three times against a superior force. And willing, determined athletes recruited for Division III produced a 7-51 overall and 4-32 Summit League record combined in 2021-22 at St. Thomas. Slight improvement with more D-I scholarships in 2023, big improvements in 2024 and 2025.

The Tommies were 10-6 and fifth in the nine-team Summit last season; yet, still ineligible for the six-team league tournament because St. Thomas still was in D-I transition and couldn’t compete in NCAA postseasons.

South Dakota State is the host, the favorite and a traditional power.

“We have nine seniors, outstanding Tommies, and they have set a great example for our teams to come,” Pham said. “I was apprehensive when we made this transition, but I look around now, the enrollment, the energy … Division I was absolutely the right move for St. Thomas."

Then, Thanh Pham motioned to his surroundings — Schoenecker Arena (opened in 2010) — and said: “Basketball is across the street in that fabulous new arena. This is ours as a competition venue.