Loyola Names 1st Full-Time Women’s Volleyball Coach

Loyola Marymount University this week named Steve Stratos to be its first full-time women’s volleyball coach.

Stratos, 37, takes the place of Mike Normand, who coached both men’s and women’s volleyball this season. Normand will continue to coach the men’s team.

Stratos, a resident of Torrance and a 1975 graduate of San Diego State, has coached the boys and girls volleyball teams at Woodbridge High in Irvine for eight years, guiding both teams to CIF playoffs in recent seasons. The Woodbridge girls have had a national Top 20 ranking the past four years. His boys team is 12-1 this season and is ranked third in the CIF 4-A Division.

Stratos has also served as president of the Orange County Volleyball Coaches Assn. and on the CIF Volleyball Advisory Board.

Stratos takes over a team that was 9-19 overall and 7-7 in the West Coast Conference. He will have eight returning players, including all-conference hitter Kerry House. “With the school’s commitment to the program, I believe this is an outstanding situation for me,” Stratos said.

Athletic Director Brian Quinn, who was formerly assistant principal at Woodbridge, called Stratos “an outstanding volleyball coach who is also a tremendous teacher.” Quinn called the hiring “the dawning of a new era in women’s athletics at LMU.”