Jerritt Elliott Pilots Texas to NCAA Volleyball Repeat

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

As difficult as winning a championship is in any sports, defending it is even tougher.

Yet that is what the University of Texas women’s volleyball team did last Sunday in Tampa, sweeping top-ranked Nebraska, 25-22, 25-14, 25-11, in the finals to capture its second consecutive NCAA Division I title and third under coach Jerritt Elliott, who grew up in the Palisades.

The No. 2-seeded Longhorns swept Louisville to win the title last season when they finished 28-1. This time the Big 12 champs won 29 of 33 matches, and in their three-set victory over the Cornhuskers, they became the first team in NCAA women’s volleyball history to win back-to-back titles in finals sweeps. In their latest title run they beat three No. 1 seeds in a row: Stanford, Wisconsin and, lastly, Nebraska.

Elliott has been the coach at Texas since 2001, and in his 23 seasons in Austin, he has piloted the Horns to 15 Big 12 crowns (including 13 straight trips to the regional finals from 2006-18) and seven finals appearances. His first national championship was in 2012 when Texas topped Oregon in straight sets in Louisville.

Elliott grew up on Miami Way and graduated from Palisades Charter High School. He was selected Pac-10 Coach of the Year in both of his seasons at USC, where he led the Women of Troy to a No. 4 national ranking and a 29-3 record in 2000.

His father Mel was a world class track athlete and later served as executive director of the Palisades-Malibu YMCA. Elliott went to Marquez Charter Elementary and Paul Revere Charter Middle schools, played in the PPBA, and was a senior middle blocker on perhaps Pali High’s finest volleyball team ever—the 1986 squad that went undefeated and captured the City title with the likes of Kent Steffes, Adam Unger and J.B. Saunders.

After high school he played at Pepperdine and Hawaii, and earned a degree in kinesiology in 1991 from California State University, Northridge, where he soon became volunteer coach for the Matadors’ men’s team. He became interim women’s coach at USC, guiding the Women of Troy to back-to-back No. 1 recruiting classes and the NCAA Final Four for the first time since 1985.

The 55-year-old has a career coaching mark of 640 victories and 126 losses.