BATON ROUGE — LSU volleyball head coach Fran Flory announced the hiring of John Blackwell as an assistant coach for the upcoming season on Tuesday.
Blackwell, who returns to the Southeastern Conference after a one-year absence, replaces Danijela Tomic who left the volleyball program in January to become the head coach at Florida International in Miami.
As an assistant coach at Rice last season, he helped the Owls advance to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history and post a 25-5 (.833) record overall, including a 12-1 record in Western Athletic Conference play, the best overall and conference records in school history.
A school-record six players were named to the All-WAC teams, the most of any school in the league, including four on the first team. Additionally, one player earned all-WAC Tournament team honors and one was named to the AVCA All-West Region squad. In the classroom, the Owls placed one player on the Academic All-America first team and four on the Academic All-District teams.
Prior to his one-year stint at Rice, Blackwell was an assistant coach for four seasons at Mississippi State where he worked primarily with the middle blockers and served as the recruiting coordinator. His 2004 recruiting class ranked among the top 50 nationally by PrepVolleyball.com.
As the team’s coordinator with the MSU academic office, he saw the Bulldogs earn the AVCA academic team award in both 2000 and 2001.
Prior to working at Mississippi State, Blackwell was the head coach at NAIA Division I Belhaven College in Jackson, Miss., from 1996-99. Over the four seasons, his teams improved from a 1-29 record in 1996 to a 21-15 record in 1999 while finishing second in the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference. His players earned five all-GCAC honors in his final year while setting school records in wins, kills, assists, aces and digs.
Additionally, his teams were successful in the classroom as two players were named to the NAIA Academic All-America teams and the Blazers earned the AVCA/Molten team academic award.
In 1996, Blackwell founded the first girls volleyball club in the Jackson area and guided the Jackson Volleyball Club’s growth as director for four years. He also worked at numerous collegiate camps around the SEC, including LSU, Ole Miss and Alabama.
A native of New Orleans, Blackwell was a three-year standout in basketball at John Curtis High School in River Ridge before attending Millsaps College in Jackson, where he graduated in 1992 with a bachelors degree in accounting. Following his graduation, he was an assistant coach for three seasons at his alma mater, working primarily with the setters and middle blockers for the NCAA Division III team.
The 34-year-old Blackwell is married to the former Jackie Batte of Jackson. The couple has two sons, Taylor (11) and Carter (7).