Ken Bentley was born in Winnipeg, graduated high school from Murdoch MacKay Collegiate and completed his post-secondary studies at the University of Manitoba. As of the 2025-26 season, Bentley enters his 40th year as the head coach of the University of Manitoba women’s volleyball program.
Bentley continues to produce results at the highest level in Canada in terms of athlete development and team performance. On January 15, 2015, he became the first women’s volleyball coach in Canadian university volleyball history to reach 1,000 wins and currently sits with an overall record of 1175-477.
Coach Bentley has taken his teams to the national final on 11 occasions, winning seven (1990, 1991, 1992, 2001, 2002, 2014, 2025). Overall, he has appeared in a total of 22 national championship tournaments at the university level, spanning five different decades. That includes a run of 16 straight appearances from 1987-2002, as well as 2007, 2010, 2014, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Out of Manitoba's 22 national championship appearances under Bentley, the team has finished inside the top three of 16 different occasions. Bentley's Bisons also made it to 15 consecutive GPAC finals in his first 15 years at Manitoba. Click here for Bentley's complete coaching history at national championships, and here for his overall coaching record at the university level.
Notably, in 1991, Bentley and the Bisons were ranked No. 1 all season, and won every tournament and league championship they participated in, as part of the second of the straight national titles. In 2014, Bentley's Bisons made history, becoming the first team in the rally scoring era to not lose a single set at a national championship.
Bentley's commitment to club volleyball over the same period of time and beyond has been equally impressive. He oversees the Junior Bison Volleyball Program, which offers club teams from the developmental to elite levels from 13U to 18U, and also includes summer camps, fall camps, mini volley and private lessons.
At the club level, Bentley is the only Canadian coach to have won national championships at the 14U, 15U, 16U, 17U, 18U, 20U and Senior AA age categories, beginning in 1983-1984 with the Prairie Blue Seniors, who won gold at the Senior AA Championships. Bentley was just 21 years old at the time. Overall, he has won 13 championships in club/age class volleyball, including a Canada Games gold medal, bringing his overall total of championships won since 1983-1984 to 20. Seven of those 20 championship teams went through their entire championship without losing a single set.
Bentley won Canada West Coach of the Year honours in back-to-back seasons between 2006-07 and 2007-08 and was selected U SPORTS Coach of the Year in the 1991-92 and 2006-07 seasons along with several coaching honours in the defunct Great Plains league. In addition, he was honoured with the University of Manitoba's annual Outreach Award in 2009, and was the Bisons Coach of the Year in the 2013-14 and 2024-25 seasons.
At the international level, Bentley has been an assistant coach for the Junior National (summer 1987) and National B (summer 1991, 1993, 2010) teams. His biggest privilege was serving as an assistant coach with the Canadian Women’s Olympic Team at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, where two of his alumni were instrumental (Christine Toews and Michelle Sawatzky) in the first ever Olympic win in Canadian women’s volleyball history.
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