Carl Ritter Jr. has had a great passion for the sport of volleyball from the days when his father began coaching the sport at Zalma High School in the early 1970’s. Not having the opportunity to play himself in high school, Ritter helped out with the girls’ volleyball program at Advance High School where he attended. After high school, he went on to attend Southeast Missouri State University where he played a vital role of forming the first men’s USAV team at Southeast traveling to other universities for tournaments. After college, Ritter began his teaching career at Oran High School in the fall of 1982. Oran did not have a volleyball program at the time until Ritter was able to convince the local school board in the spring of 1983 to begin the program in the fall of 1983 under Ritter’s direction. In the third year of the program, Ritter’s team only lost three matches that season and finished second in the district tournament. His coaching career later took him to Zalma High School in the fall of 1989. During his second season at Zalma, Ritter’s team finished first in the 1990 Class 1 Missouri State Volleyball tournament and finished second in 1991 and 1992. Ritter was named Class 1 Missouri Coach of the Year in 1990.

After leaving education in 1992, Ritter wanted to provide an opportunity for his daughter, Kacie, to play club volleyball and that is when he started the North Stoddard County Volleyball Club in 2001 which was known as NSC. In the fall of 2005, Ritter went back into education and coached at Scott City High School for two years. While at Scott City, Ritter had back to back district titles with his 2006 team finishing in the elite eight. The Spring of 2007 is when Ritter changed the name of the club to North Stoddard Scott County Volleyball Club which is now known as NSSC.

The NSSC Volleyball Club has grown tremendously under his direction over the past six years serving the Southeast Missouri region. The club is based out of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Today the club has team members that travel as far as 140 miles away to play for NSSC. The club recently began promoting boys’ volleyball in the Cape Girardeau area finishing its second season during the 2015 club campaign. Ritter has coached three 18’s teams to the National USAV Tournament during the club’s existence, in 2010 and 2018 with the best finish in 2015 placing 11th in the nation in the American division. On August 7, 2015, Ritter was awarded by USAV Volleyball the Robert L. Lindsay Meritorious Service Award for contributing outstanding participation, motivation and other services in the promotion of volleyball.

Ritter is currently the Recruiting Coordinator for Jefferson Community College in Hillsboro, Missouri. Jefferson College is a Division I Junior College which finished 10th at the National Tournament in 2021.

Ritter resides in Cape Girardeau with his wife, Angie. They have two children, Jared Ritter and Kacie Ritter, daughter-in-law Jaime Ritter, grandsons Jerron and Pacey along with granddaughters Blakley, Karter and Boston.

Feel free to contact Carl at nsscvolleyballclub@gmail.com