BATON ROUGE – Julia Sell, who won a national title as a player at Florida and later helped Notre Dame to back-to-back Final Four appearances as an assistant, has been named the head women’s tennis coach at LSU, vice chancellor and director of athletics Joe Alleva announced on Friday.
“Julia is a rising star in women’s tennis,” Alleva said. “She is very bright, passionate and competitive. She believes in developing student-athletes to be champions in competition, in the classroom and in life. I am very excited about having her join our team.”
Sell comes to LSU from the United States Tennis Association where she served as the national coach of the regional training center in south Florida since August of 2011.
“I’m truly honored to be the head women’s tennis coach at LSU and very thankful to Joe Alleva for giving me this incredible opportunity,” Sell said. “I felt an instant connection to LSU’s rich athletic tradition and passion for excellence. My vision for the program aligns with the true LSU experience and I am looking forward to immersing myself into Tiger athletics and bringing the women’s tennis team back to national prominence.”
Prior to her stint with the USTA, Sell served as an assistant coach for Notre Dame for three years from September of 2008 until August of 2011. While at Notre Dame, she helped the Irish capture three Big East titles as well as reaching the national semifinals of the NCAA Championships in 2009 and 2010. The Irish, who also advanced to the semifinals of the 2009 ITA National Team Indoor Championships, finished the 2009 and 2010 seasons ranked No. 5 in the nation, the highest final ranking in school history.
Off the court, Notre Dame’s women’s tennis team earned the highest grade point average among all of the Irish’s teams with a 3.6 GPA in 2009 followed by a 3.65 in 2010.
Sell joined the Irish following a four-month span as one of two coaches for the USTA Summer Collegiate Team, which serves as an elite training program for the top American collegiate tennis players.
Sell got her start in coaching at the collegiate level in September of 2007 when she was named an assistant coach at Harvard. In her one season at Harvard, she helped recruit the nation’s seventh-best signing class in 2007 followed by helping set the stage for the nation’s No. 2 rated class the following year.
A 2003 graduate of the University of Florida, Sell served as team captain for the Gators from 2000-2003. During that span, the Gators captured the NCAA title in 2003 and finished as national runner-up in 2002. At the conference level, the Gators won the Southeastern Conference title in 2001 and 2003 and captured three SEC Tournament titles in 2000, 2002 and 2003.
Individually, Sell earned Academic All-SEC honors in 2000 and was the ITA South Region Player of the Year as a senior in 2003. She was also a member of the Florida Student-Athlete Advisory Council from 1999 to 2003 and was active in the Goodwill Gators Community Outreach Program for four years.