BATON ROUGE — Karen Elliott, 45, a former LSU women’s tennis coach died on Saturday, May 11 after a long battle with breast cancer.
Karen served as the LSU women’s tennis coach in 1980 after graduating from LSU in 1979. Karen was a four-year letterwinner for the Lady Tiger tennis team from 1975 to 1979 and her 37 singles victories in 1978 still rank as the second highest total in school history.
As coach of the Lady Tigers, Elliott led LSU to a 22-13 mark in 1980 and to the Louisiana AIAW title. The Lady Tigers finished the year ranked No. 18 in the nation, the first-ever national ranking for LSU. The 22 wins rank as the highest total for an LSU women’s tennis team.
Karen, a Louisiana native, was married to Jeff Elliott, the former Senior Associate Athletic Director and Director of the Smith Center at the University of North Carolina. Elliott, who also served as Director of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on the LSU campus, is currently an Associate Commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The Elliott’s son, Jeremy, is a junior at North Carolina and is a member of the Tar Heel men’s golf team. Their daughter, Ashley, is a senior and cheerleader at Oak Hill Academy, where she will be graduating with honors later this spring.
Karen is also survived by her mother, Jane O. McCarter of Shreveport, La.; her sister, Linda McConnell of Baton Rouge, La.; and two brothers, Andrew and Christopher McCarter of Shreveport.
A funeral service will be conducted at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, May 14th, at the Rose-Neath Funeral Home in Shreveport.
The family requests in lieu of flowers, memorials be sent to the Chapel Hill Breast Cancer Foundation, attention Ann Petersen, 1506 East Franklin Street, Suite 100, Chapel Hill NC 27514.