Mark Booras Season 2024-25
An assistant coach with Mark Booras’ capabilities is almost unheard of in collegiate tennis. Booras has played a large role in the Tigers success during his 9 years on the LSU staff. Booras holds his players to high standards on the court, in the classroom and in the community. Booras leadership was showcased in 2007 when the Intercollegiate Tennis Association named him Assistant Coach of the Year.
“We have been fortunate to have Mark for as long as we have,” head coach Jeff Brown said. “He’s a super coach and tactician. He’s a great role model for the guys and he plays as well as anybody on the team.”
Booras has pushed the Tigers in the classroom. His encouragement paid off as the Tigers were honored by the NCAA in 2007 for its latest Academic Progress Rate score. The Tigers scored a perfect APR of 1000 in the report by the NCAA. The LSU men’s tennis team scored the highest among LSU sports for the third year in a row. The NCAA recognized college sports teams from around the country that achieved an APR score in the top 10 percent of all squads in their respective sports. The LSU men’s tennis team is one of only 10 sports teams out of 236 squads in the entire Southeastern Conference that were recognized for academic achievement by the NCAA, and it is the only men’s tennis team in the SEC to achieve the honor.
Booras was recognized in 2004 and 2007 as the best assistant coach in the ITA Southeast Region, which holds some of the top coaching and playing talent in the country. That same year Booras was given the title of associate head coach.
In his first season with the Tigers, Booras helped guide LSU to its second consecutive SEC Championship as well as a berth in the Final Four. The 1999 squad also won its second-straight SEC Tournament, becoming the first team to ever repeat as tournament champions.
Booras, a Chicago native, graduated from West Virginia in 1993 and played college tennis for the legendary Terry Deremer. He was a top-20 singles and doubles player throughout his college career.
In each of his final three seasons at West Virginia, Booras competed in both the NCAA singles and doubles championship tournaments. Following his collegiate career, Booras joined the ATP tour and continued his success, ranking as high as No. 240 in the world in doubles. After a three-year career from 1994-96, he retired and decided to further his education. While earning his master’s degree in sport psychology at West Virginia he was also the assistant men’s tennis coach and a private tennis instructor.
In 1999, he came to LSU to help Brown build on the LSU tradition. His duties as assistant coach include conducting practices, player instruction during matches and recruiting future players.
“Mark continues to lend his knowledge of the game to this team and it is paying dividends,” Brown said. “He is a great recruiter and he has incredible knowledge of the game. He is as important as any one person in this program.”
Booras married the former Laura Anne Ingram on June 17, 2006.