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Rachèle Béliveau enters her 32nd year and 31st season in 2022-23 as head volleyball coach at McGill University. Heading into the campaign, she brings a 676-544-2 overall record in 1,222 career contests at McGill, including a 256-241 mark in regular season play.
The native of Sherbrooke, Que., has racked up more victories than any McGill coach in any sport in school history and has been voted Quebec conference coach of the year six times, winning the award in 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2016 and 2019.
During her playing days, Béliveau was a setter for the national team between 1983 and 1986 and was a member of the Canadian Olympic squad at the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, where Canada finished eighth.
In the 2021-22 season, Béliveau led McGill to its first-ever Quebec volleyball championship after posting a 9-3 record and finishing second to Sherbrooke on a tie-breaker, based on an 0-2 record in head-to-head play. In the semifinals, the Martlets dropped the opening game 3-2 to third-seeded UQAM, but roared back to win the best of three series with 3-1 and 3-0 victories. In the RSEQ league championship series, McGill swept top-seeded Sherbrooke by identical 3-1 scores. At the Nationals in Edmonton, the Martlets knocked off Toronto 3-1 in the quarter-final, but lost 3-0 to TWU in the semifinal and then dropped a 3-0 set back against Alberta, to finish fourth.
In 2006-07, Béliveau guided McGill to a best-ever 35-17 overall record, including a 16-9 third-place finish in the Quebec league. In 2001-02, she led the Martlets to first place in a very competitive Quebec conference (the top three teams all finished at 8-7), marking the first time in school history that the Martlets won the regular season title.
In 1996-97, she was selected as the CIAU women’s volleyball coach of the year after guiding the Martlets to an 11-5 regular season record in league play — good enough for a second-place in the Quebec conference — and a sixth-place finish in the team's first-ever trip to the national championship, where they posted a 1-2 record. The Martlets returned to the Final Eight national tourney in 2012, where they won bronze with a 2-1 record. They qualified again in 2016 and tied for seventh after posting an 0-2 record.
Béliveau, who served as an assistant coach with the Quebec women's volleyball team at the 2013 Canada Games, was inducted to the Volleyball Quebec Hall of Fame. She missed an exhibition tournament victory over Sherbrooke to attend the induction ceremony on Oct. 6, 2013, marking the first time that she had ever missed a contest during her lengthy coaching tenure at McGill, ending a streak of 985 consecutive matches.
Inducted to the Université de Sherbrooke Sports Hall of Fame in 2009, she was a two-time All-Canadian player with the Vert & Or, earning second-team honours in 1981-82 and first-team status in 1985-86. She played five seasons for Sherbrooke, between 1981 and 1989, guiding them to three consecutive conference titles in addition to silver and bronze-medal finishes at the CIAU championships.
Béliveau starred with a Canadian student team, which finished sixth at the FISU World University Summer Games. In 1986, she played for Canada at the world volleyball championships, which finished 13th.
She also played with the Canadian junior national team in 1980-81, a group that went on to capture first place at the NORCECA championships, the official competition for teams of North America, Central America and the Caribbean.