Bio

Leonardo Bilitardo is the Missouri Valley College men’s volleyball coach. Coming from São Paulo in Brasil, he graduated from MVC with a double major in Finance and Economics in 2023 and from Columbia College in 2025 with an MBA degree.

Bilitardo started to play volleyball when he was 11 years old. After a season as a GA at MVC, he realized he wanted to become a coach, and this is what he is successfully doing since. As a young coach, Bilitardo’s coaching style is constantly evolving and he uses all the experience he has acquired thanks to the coaches with whom he worked.

For him, coaching is a way to stay close to volleyball while helping new players.

“I like the fact that I can be around volleyball while impacting the future generations and helping students achieve their goals.”

If winning is important, Bilitardo wants to bring values to his players, on and off the field.

“I would like to instill my athletes to work hard, be respectful to everybody, and become leaders in and out of the court.”

One of Bilitardo’s assets is that he stopped playing very recently, so he knows what players need to be successful individually, and how each individuality makes the team stronger.

“The key for a player to be successful is the willingness to outwork everybody around you while still being a good team player. As a team, it is the willingness to put the team priorities above your own.”

Bilitardo also wants to adapt to each player in order to get the best out of each one.

“Each player is different, and I believe it is important to be flexible and know how to work with different personalities. The key is finding what works best for each player and applying that individually instead of having one technique for everybody.”

Finally, as a former college-student, Bilitardo has experienced in the past what his players are living currently and he knows what are the main issues they could face, so he makes it his priority to help them succeeding in both the academic and athletic programs.

“The biggest challenge of coaching at a college level is teaching them how to manage their time in and out of the court in order to succeed both athletically and academically.”