BATON ROUGE — LSU volleyball head coach Fran Flory announced the hiring of Danijela Tomic as an assistant coach for the upcoming season on Wednesday.
Tomic replaces Ainsley Grimes who left the volleyball program in June to pursue other job opportunities.
An assistant at Arkansas-Little Rock for four years, Tomic spent eight years with the Trojans as a player and student assistant before taking the assistant coaches position in 1999. At UALR, she was involved in practice planning, recruiting, game strategy and on the floor coaching.
The native of Kakanj, Bosnia-Herzegovina was critical in the recruitment of several foreign athletes to the Arkansas-Little Rock program that aided in their success over the years. The first of the foreign athletes to play volleyball for the Trojans, she was followed by four players that combined to earn five All-Sun Belt Conference honors, three All-SBC Tournament MVP honors, a conference Freshman of the Year honor and an all-tournament selection.
In two seasons as a player at UALR, Tomic was selected to the All-SBC second team and named to the All-SBC Tournament team twice. She also was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player in 1996 as the Trojans captured their first tournament title.
As an outside hitter and setter, she recorded over 500 digs, almost 500 kills, over 300 assists, over 100 blocks and almost 100 service aces in just two seasons while maintaining a .264 hitting percentage. She remains ranked in the top 10 in eight of the nine UALR career statistical categories.
LSU opens the 2003 season with the two-day Tiger Classic in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center beginning on August 29. The Tigers begin play on Friday at 12:30 p.m. against Centenary before taking on Virginia at 7 p.m. The tournament concludes with LSU facing UAB on Saturday at 1 p.m.