#0 Judy Southard Season 2020-21
Judy Southard, who had very successful careers as both head women’s basketball coach and Director of Athletics, enters her eighth year at LSU having been promoted to Senior Associate Athletics Director in May 2006.
Southard came to LSU from Texas Woman’s University, where she served as the school’s Director of Athletics for nine years.
As LSU’s Senior Woman Administrator, Southard’s responsibilities include oversight of the highly successful Tiger Olympic Sports program including 17 men’s and women’s sports. She has direct supervision of volleyball, women’s basketball, softball, men’s and women’s swimming and diving and men’s and women’s golf as well as responsibilities in monitoring the athletic department’s Gender Equity and Diversity Issues Plan.
Southard just completed a successful tenure as a member of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Committee and served in the important role of committee chair for the 2006-07 and 2007-08 academic years. She additionally served as a member of the SEC Executive Committee from 2004-2007.
While at Texas Woman’s, Southard initiated a corporate partnership program for the athletic department and was instrumental in the addition of two sports to the department’s sport offerings.
Prior to her stint at TWU, Southard served as head women’s basketball coach at Marshall University in Huntington, W. Va., for 11 years, where she led the Lady Herd to five Southern Conference titles and was named Southern Conference Coach of the Year three times. Southard also served as Assistant Athletics Director/SWA at Marshall from 1983-88, including a four-month period when she was interim director of athletics.
Before going to Marshall, Southard spent three years as head coach at Tennessee-Martin and she also served for one season as an assistant coach at Tennessee. As a high school teacher from 1970-77, Southard coached both basketball and tennis.
A native of Columbia, S.C., Southard earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education and health from Coker College in 1970 followed by a master’s degree in physical education from Tennessee in 1978. She was a 2000 inductee into the Coker College Athletics Hall of Fame and was recognized in the fall of 2006 as an inductee in the Marshall Athletic Hall of Fame.