Leadership Team
Nikki Mabrey
Director of Volleyball
Nikki Mabrey grew up in Hawaii and moved to Virginia her freshman year of High School. She played Varsity Volleyball all four years as a Middle Blocker at Battlefield High School. With many D1 offers on the table, she decided to take a full scholarship for Volleyball & Track & Field at Virginia State University. She was the starting Outside Hitter all 4 years, captain 3 of those years, MVP and made the CIAA All Conference Team her senior year.
After graduating, Nikki began her coaching career at Flint Hill where she was the JV Head Coach and Varsity Assistant coach for three years. Each season, she led the Huskies to an undefeated, first place, conference finish. She has been coaching club for 10 years and has coached every age group at the club level. Each year, she has led her team to a top 3 regional finish and qualified for USAV Nationals consistently.
Her coaching philosophy is simple: Better the athlete. Volleyball is more than just getting better on the court. As a coach, she believes in helping athletes grow as people and players. She believes in training the whole athlete. Her philosophy focuses on being disciplined, building confidence, competition, and resilience which will ultimately make them better players on and off the court.
Nikki is in her second year as Director at The St. James. Under her tutelage, The St. James has been able to add several teams this year, opening spots for many athletes in the area to learn and thrive at a high level. She is looking forward to working with all the athletes new and old coming into The St. James this season.
Nick Collins
Travel Director
Nick Collins began his playing career at NVVA playing outside hitter and libero. His team qualified for nationals twice in 2010 and 2011, finishing 17th on both occasions. He was recruited to play at Rutgers University where he played two years of DI volleyball and two years of DIII as the program transitioned to a new conference. There, he played outside hitter and libero and helped the team come in 5th in the nation two years running at the NCAA Tournament.
Nick is going into his 8th season coaching club volleyball and 5th season with The St. James. The past four seasons he has coached the 14’s and 15’s boys age groups. During the 2022-2023 season, he led the Boys 15's team to a 1st place finish at Rust Bucket Super Regional, a 9th place gold bracket finish at SoCal Cup and finished the year with a semi final silver bracket finish at Open AAU Nationals for the second year in a row. His team had 5 players nominated for both beach/indoor NTDP Accelerators with 1 player training with the U16 NTDP beach team this past summer and 2 players training with the U16 NTDP indoor team this fall.
Apart from St. James, Nick is going into his fourth season as an assistant coach at George Mason University for the men’s DI volleyball program. In addition to coaching, he serves as the primary statistician using DataVolley. Nick also spent two years as head coach for the varsity volleyball program at Robinson High School in Fairfax, VA. In his two seasons, he led the Rams to a 30-2 conference record, coached eight all-district players and five all-region players, and one all-state player as the team made States for the first time in almost 20 years.
Nick is also going into his 2nd season at the Travel Director for the St. James where he helps with player development, coach's training and travel management for the club season. This past year, St. James had it's most successful year with nearly 3 Gold Bracket finishes at AAU Open Nationals and a CHRVA region record 5th place finish for the Boys 18's team.
Drew Castleman
Manager of Volleyball/Recruiting Coordinator
Drew Castleman is from Freehold, NJ and moved to Virginia in 2021. Growing up along the Jersey shore, beach volleyball played an important role in how he learned the game. With high school volleyball not being offered at his school, Drew played four years of football, wrestling and two years of both baseball and golf. At 18 he began coaching for Warren Sixpack volleyball club out of central NJ. For three years he worked as an assistant coach for the club under multiple division 1 Men's and Women's coaches. After working alongside many coaches, and coaching kids of all levels, genders, and age groups he took over as a head coach for the Sixpack boys 16’s team. Over the next three seasons he coached the team through their 16’s, 17’s and 18’s years. Throughout those years they took home first place finishes at Can-Am and Boys East Coast championship as well as top 3 at Florida Fest and Bane.
Since moving to Alexandria, Drew has joined the St James volleyball team as a do it all coach. Over the last two years he's coached both our boys 16's team as well as one season with our girls 15's team and one season with the boys 14's team. Drew is also frequently a master coach for St James volleyball camps and clinics that are put on throughout the year.