LSU Gold

Russell Brock Season 2024

LSU
Russell Brock
Title
Head Coach
Email
rlbrock@lsu.edu
Hometown
Baytown, Texas
Alma Mater
USC (1996)

VolleyballMag.com National Coach of the Year (2018)
DiG Magazine National Coach of the Year (2019)
CCSA Coach of the Year (2017)

Since taking over as the head coach of the LSU Beach Volleyball team going into the 2017 season, Russell Brock has led the Tigers to national prominence as one of the best beach programs in the country. Brock has been with the program since its first year of existence in 2014 when he served as the associate head coach under Fran Flory until being named head coach prior to the 2017 season.

The Tigers have reached the NCAA Championship tournament every year that Brock has been leading the program and LSU has been ranked inside the AVCA Top-10 every week of his head coaching tenure.

After losing a majority of his lineup going into the 2022 season, Brock led the Tigers to one of its best years ever despite so much roster turnover. LSU won a program-best 27 regular season matches and finished with 32 wins on the year, the most in program history. LSU had five pairs earn AVCA Top Flight honors during the 2022 season, also a program record.

The 2021 season featured a lineup heavily made up of players that returned with an extra year of eligibility following COVID. With an experienced and talented group, the Tigers never dipped below No. 4 in the AVCA poll. LSU’s pair on Court 1 of Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss was dominant throughout the year, going 36-0 and becoming the first LSU beach duo to claim AVCA National Pair of the Year. Nuss finished her career at LSU with 139 victories, the most by a player in college beach volleyball history.

By 2020, Brock had built the LSU Beach Volleyball program into a national power and the Tigers carried a No. 2 ranking into the season. With his deepest roster to date, Brock put his team’s ranking on the line the first weekend of the season in Hawaii for five matches against three top-ranked teams. The Tigers left Hawaii with a 3-2 record, but picked up wins over No. 19 Stanford, No. 5 Hawaii and No. 1 UCLA and brought back hardware to Baton Rouge as the Duke Kahanamoku Beach Classic Champions. LSU took down No. 1 UCLA for the second time in two weeks the following weekend in Baton Rouge in front of a NCAA Beach Volleyball On-Campus record 2,407 fans, propelling LSU to its first ever No. 1 ranking in both the AVCA and DiG polls. The Tigers were 12-2 and ranked No. 1 when the 2020 season was cut short due to Covid-19.

Playing together for four seasons, Claire Coppola and Kristen Nuss won 103 matches as a pair, becoming just the third college beach pair ever to eclipse 100 victories together.

In his first year leading the Tigers in 2017, Brock was named the CCSA Coach of the Year in 2017 after taking LSU to its first NCAA Championship appearance. In 2018 he was named volleyballmag.com National Coach of the Year and in 2019 DiG Magazine named him National Coach of the Year. The 2019 season was a big year for the program as the Tigers reached the NCAA semi-finals for the first time in program history and finished the year ranked No. 3 in the final AVCA Poll.

Three players – Coppola, Kloth and Nuss – have earned All-America honors under Brock’s leadership. Coppola and Nuss teamed up to earn two CCSA Pair of the Year Awards and then Kloth and Nuss won AVCA National Pair of the Year together. Eleven pairs have earned AVCA Top Flight honors under Brock, including at least one pair on each court.

Under the leadership of Coach Brock, LSU opened LSU Beach Volleyball Stadium in January of 2019 with the help of generous donations from the Tiger Athletic Foundation. It is the premier beach volleyball facility in the country and Brock coached his team to a perfect 13-0 home record during its inaugural season.

Prior to joining LSU, Brock spent eight seasons with the indoor volleyball program at Rice University. He served as a volunteer coach from 2006 to 2008 before being promoted to assistant coach in 2009. The Owls totaled 141 wins, two NCAA tournament trips and the program’s first Conference USA championship in 2009 while Brock was there. He helped in the development of middle blockers and coached Natalie Bogan and Nancy Cole to AVCA All-American honors.

Before joining the coaching staff at Rice, Brock spent 11 years at Baytown Christian Academy in Texas as the school’s athletic director and operations manager. He coached the girls’ volleyball team and won four Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools state titles. Brock was also a standout athlete at the University of Southern California, leading the program’s all-time record in digs, tallying 956, a record that stood for 10 years. He also set an NCAA record with 45 matches with 10-plus digs. Brock graduated from USC in 1996 with a B.S. in exercise science.

He and his wife, Kristi, have two daughters, Brooklynn, Kaelynn, and one son, Kory.

Head Coaching Record by Year

Year School Record Finish
2017 LSU 27-8 No. 6
2018 LSU 27-14 No. 6
2019 LSU 31-8 No. 3
2020* LSU 12-2 No. 1
2021 LSU 27-9 No. 4
2022 LSU 32-12 No. 4
2023 LSU
Total 6 Seasons 156-53

*Season shortened due to COVID-19

Player Honors Under Brock

AVCA All-Americans
Claire Coppola/Kristen Nuss (2018, 2019)
Taryn Kloth/Kristen Nuss (2021)

AVCA Pair of the Year
Taryn Kloth/Kristen Nuss (2021)

VolleyballMag All-Americans
Claire Coppola/Kristen Nuss (2017, 2018)
Taryn Kloth/Kristen Nuss (2021)

DiG Magazine All-Americans
Claire Coppola (2017, 2019)
Kristen Nuss (2019)
CCSA Pair of the Year
Claire Coppola/Kristen Nuss (2018, 2019)
Taryn Kloth/Kristen Nuss (2021)

CCSA Freshman of the Year
Lilly Kessler (2016)

CCSA All-Conference
Claire Coppola (2017, 2018, 2019)
Kristen Nuss (2017, 2018, 2019, 2021)
Taryn Kloth (2021)
Kylie Deberg (2022)
Kelli Greene-Agnew (2022)
Reilly Allred (2022)
Holly Carlton (2022)

CCSA All-Freshman Team
Ashley Allmer (2016)
Lilly Kessler (2016)
Claire Coppola (2017)
Hunter Domanski (2018)
Allison Coens (2019)
Kelli Agnew (2019)
Parker Bracken (2022)