Maliah Blakemore was hired as the Knox College Head Volleyball Coach and Senior Woman Administrator in December 2023.
Most recently, Blakemore was the assistant volleyball coach at Kansas Wesleyan University. She helped lead the Coyotes to the opening round of the NAIA National Championship in 2023.
Blakemore arrived at Kansas Wesleyan after spending the 2021 and 2022 seasons as the head coach at Hannibal-LaGrange University (HLGU) where she led the Trojans to 25 wins. She was named the American Midwest Conference (AMC) Coach of the Year in 2021, leading HLGU to a nine-win improvement from the prior season. She also helped HLGU to its best record in the last 15 years.
Prior to becoming the head coach at Hannibal-LaGrange, Blakemore was a graduate assistant for the Trojans for one season in 2020.
Before arriving at HLGU, Blakemore played four seasons at Lincoln Christian University (LCU) where she was selected to the Association of Independent Institutions (AII) All-Conference Second Team in 2016 and 2017. She followed that up with first-team all-conference selections in 2018 and 2019, earning AII Setter of the Year honors in her final campaign
She was selected to the AII All-Tournament Team all four years at Lincoln Christian. She finished her career ranked third all-time in assists at LCU. While at LCU, the women's volleyball team qualified for the NAIA National Volleyball Tournament twice.
Blakemore played at Quincy High School in nearby Quincy, Illinois, and was a three-year starter. As a senior she led Illinois High School Class 4A in assists.
She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in communications from Lincoln Christian, and a master’s degree in organizational leadership in business from HLGU.
