Gerard Jouault

Gerard Jouault was a French volleyball coach and administrator who shaped club and national volleyball from Calais and the Pas-de-Calais for more than four decades. Born on 31 January 1952 in Vendin-le-Vieil, he died on 20 September 2026 at the age of 74. Local reports described him as an emblematic builder of Calais volleyball.

Jouault's coaching life was rooted in northern France. From 1971 to 1988 he worked with clubs in Calais and Arques before taking charge of Stella ES Calais from 1988 to 1995. Under his leadership Stella climbed the French ladder, winning the national second-division women's title in 1992 and the N1B championship in 1993, then finishing third in the top flight in 1995. The crowning club moment came on 26 May 1994, when Stella beat RC Cannes 3-1 in the women's Coupe de France final at the Dome de Villebon.

Between 1994 and 1997 he served as head coach of the France women's national team, taking the side to the Universiade in Japan, the Mediterranean Games and European Championship qualifying. From 1998 to 2005, and again from 2009 to 2012, he led Loisirs Inter Sport Saint-Pierre Calais (LISSP), guiding the men's program to the 2001 N1M title and promotion toward the professional ranks, and later to a 2012 runners-up finish and another accession push. In 2007-2008 he also coached Rwanda's men's national team, and in 2014-2015 he returned briefly to Stella's women's side.

Beyond the bench he was president of the Pas-de-Calais departmental volleyball committee from 2000, overseeing roughly twenty-three clubs and some 2,500 licensed players and promoting youth clinics across the region. French and local media remembered him after his death as one of Calais volleyball's great builders. La Voix du Nord and Radio6 reported the news on 21 September 2026, recalling the 1994 cup triumph and his long stewardship of club and departmental volleyball. Radio6 called him an incontournable figure of Calais volleyball and an artisan of the sport's growth across the Pas-de-Calais, a reputation built as much in committee rooms and youth clinics as on championship Sundays. He leaves a record measured less in celebrity than in titles, promotions and a generation of players and coaches who came through Calais.