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Fran Flory has an open-door policy.The LSU volleyball coach always keeps her door open, allowing players to visit her in her office at any time.”She’s really good at responding,” senior libero Elena Martinez said. “She answers her cell phone all the time. As far as that goes she’s pretty unique as a head coach.”Flory, now in her 11th season at LSU, revived the program through hard work and building trust with her players.Martinez said she stops by Flory’s office at least once or twice a week, whether it’s for watching film or talking about life in general.”Anything at all — school, family life,” Martinez said. “She’s really open.”Flory’s coaching style is “active” but not over zealous, Martinez said.”She has a lot to say but she’s really good at saying things at the right time and motivating in the right way,” Martinez said.Junior middle blocker Lauren DeGirolamo said Flory “doesn’t want to yell” at her players but will if necessary.”She’s gotten loud a couple times,” DeGirolamo said. “It’s mostly when we don’t do stuff after she said it once or twice, if we keep doing stuff that we’re not supposed to. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her scream at the top of her lungs.”Flory doesn’t give her players any guarantees, whether it is about playing time or championships.”I can’t promise stuff to kids, and I don’t make those promises,” Flory said. “But I can tell you that every day our staff and myself and the players work toward [those goals].”DeGirolamo said Flory stood out to her when she was being recruited because she was concerned about “more than just volleyball.””All the other coaches just kind of seemed like business, it was just volleyball,” DeGirolamo said. “Coach Flory was more about the student athlete.”Flory, a Baton Rouge native, took the job in January 1998, energizing a program that had fallen on hard times.”They were 0-and-15 in the league,” Flory said. “It was kind of sad to coach against them at Kentucky and see them have tons of adversity … They had player injuries. They had players leaving the program. They just had every stroke of bad luck they possibly could’ve had.”Flory has won 185 matches at LSU, with 72 in the past three seasons and three straight Southeastern Conference Western Division titles.LSU won 39 matches in the three seasons before Flory became head coach.But Flory’s record at her previous head coaching job, Kentucky, was less than stellar — 78-80 in five seasons.”I got thrown into a head coaching position when I wasn’t ready to be a head coach in the SEC,” Flory said. “I kind of had to learn on the fly. The experiences there certainly prepared me to be a much better head coach.”Flory’s current stint at LSU isn’t her first in Baton Rouge. She was an assistant coach for the Tigers from 1988 to 1991, a time of prosperity for the program.LSU won three conference championships in that span and made back to back Final Fours in 1990 and 1991.”I got a lot of credit for that,” Flory said of the Tigers’ early ‘90s dominance. “It wasn’t me. It was the combination of people.”Flory was on the bench in 1991 when LSU lost in the Final Four to Long Beach State, a loss Flory said “destroyed her as a coach.””We had the best team that year,” Flory said. “I vowed at that point if I ever got the chance to come back here and be the head coach that that would be our goal, and that’s the direction we’re headed.”Flory said the biggest difference in the program from when she arrived and now is the support from the Athletic Department.”The commitment that Skip Bertman made and certainly that Joe Alleva is continuing to make has gone light years ahead of where we were previously,” Flory said. “We didn’t have that support system [at first]. It was in place but not to the extent that it is now.”Flory said she doesn’t have a set timetable for when she wants to finish coaching.But she said she can’t see herself coaching anywhere else.”This is my life, this is my home,” Flory said. “If I’m not coaching at LSU, I’m not coaching.”—-Contact Contact Robert Stewart at [email protected]