LSU coach Fran Flory had no other option but to roll her high school volleyball coach’s house in toilet paper.
Flory’s high school coach, Frances Compton, had just told her defeated volleyball team they didn’t know how to play as a team. She encouraged them to try an activity that would strengthen the team’s dynamic.
Flory decided the best thing to do was prank her coach —“team bonding,” as she called it.
“She was such a tomboy,” Compton said. “She loved sports. She loved [physical education]. She was always the first one in the gym. She was always the one to dust off the floors and put up the net. She did anything and everything to help our program…She was just a natural.”
Compton was close friends with Flory’s parents, who adopted her in New Orleans at nine months old after adopting her older brother five years earlier because they could not have children.
“My parents allowed [me to be an athlete] and provided for that … I know I’m privileged for a family like that,” Flory said.
She said the knowledge of her past hasn’t changed anything for her because she has always known what she wants to do with her life: coach.
“As students, you come to college and you try to figure out what you’re going to be, and very few people are privileged enough or know themselves well enough to know what you want to do at a young age,” Flory said.
She began her journey at Magnolia Woods Elementary, where her physical education teacher allowed her to assist in coaching and teaching different sports. There was only one condition: Flory could only help out when her schoolwork finished.
Not only did Flory help her coach, but she was an impressive athlete as well.
Twelve-year-old Flory continued her athletic journey at Episcopal Independent Private School. With no interest in volleyball, Flory joined the swim team, and later, the basketball team. However, Flory decided to play volleyball after making a deal.
“One of the best athletes in the class a couple years ahead of me was begging me to play volleyball because I was a pretty good athlete,” Flory said. “I said ‘OK. I’ll play volleyball if you promise you’ll play basketball’ because she was also a really good athlete.”
Not knowing much about the sport, Flory said she fell in love and went on to attend the University of Texas to play both volleyball and basketball.
“Probably, had basketball season started first, I would be in basketball right now,” Flory said.
Flory said she initially wanted to be a teacher, but learned quickly that she didn’t have the patience for the job.
Coaching? Flory had to be convinced to do that, too.
Compton, a former LSU assistant volleyball coach, convinced Flory to move back to her hometown to become a graduate assistant volleyball coach at LSU.
Now, Flory has been head coach at LSU for 19 seasons. Associate head coach Jill Lytle Wilson, who played for Flory at LSU, coached with her for 10 years.
“We are beyond close in many, many ways, on and off the court,” Wilson said. “She is my ultimate mentor, and that’s why I wanted to be with her so long and also with this program. This is her home. She bleeds purple and gold, and so do I.”
Flory loves a lot about coaching, especially winning. But team-building is a close second.
“Bringing this group of young women together toward a common goal and having people from all different backgrounds, ethnicities and socioeconomic situations and bringing them together and teaching them how to be one — that’s what I love about this … We are one.”

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Ari Ross

LSU volleyball head coach Fran Flory gives a pep talk Sunday, Sept. 27, 2015, during the Tigers' 3-0 victory over South Carolina in the PMAC.