University of Tennessee at Chattanooga head volleyball coach Travis Filar officially announced the addition of Scott Carter as an assistant coach and has now finalized the coaching staff in its entirety for the upcoming 2019 season, Tuesday morning.
In addition to the hiring of Carter, Filar added Juliana Yensho as a Volunteer Assistant Coach while Lauren Barr returns for her third season on the bench, this time serving a volunteer role as both the Staff Consultant and Director of Student-Athlete Development.
More information including quotes from Filar can be found below.
"I could not be more excited to finally announce our assistant coaching additions and responsibility shifts within our staff," said Filar. "I believe all three of these individuals will immediately make our program better with their expertise in and out of the gym due to their minds for the game, their hearts for challenging, encouraging, leading young people, and most importantly, who they are as people. They embody our program's core values and make our culture, coaching staff, and program stronger."
A fixture in amateur volleyball across all levels including recruiting, training and developing, Carter comes to the Scenic City after an impressive a four-year head coaching stint at NCAA DIII Baldwin Wallace (Ohio) from 2015-2018. During his time at BW, Carter coached the Yellow Jackets to three of the school's top five winningest seasons including a program-best 27-5 (.844) record in 2018.
Before Carter's arrival at Baldwin Wallace, the volleyball program saw just two winning seasons in the past decade and carried an RPI ranking of 167. Carter brought the Yellow Jackets to national prominence, earning spots in the regional and national rankings for three consecutive seasons. The Streetsboro, Ohio, native also has extensive experience in coaching and developing student-athletes including at the NCAA DI level.
After handling Recruiting/Offensive Coordinator responsibilities at MAC-member Kent State from 2001-2003, Carter joined SEC-power Kentucky from 2003-2005 as the program's Recruiting/Defensive Coordinator. Back-to-back Top 30 (ranked by PrepVolleyball.com) recruiting classes at UK saw the Wildcats improve from 12-18, to 26-6 over the course of the four seasons the recruits competed.
Carter returned to Kent State in 2005-06 as the program's Recruiting/Defensive Coordinator before taking over Interim Head Coach duties from 2007-08. He helped improve the Golden Flashes from a 9-22 mark to a 22-10 record in just three seasons. Between the two NCAA DI tenures at Kent State and Kentucky, Carter had a direct impact in the recruiting and development of two AVCA All-Americans, an SEC Defensive Player of the Year winner, 16 All-Conference Team selections and eight conference All-Freshman honorees.
Barr will take on dual titles of Coaching Staff Consultant and Volunteer Director of Student-Athlete Development ahead of the 2019 season. She returns for her third season on the bench after previously serving as the VSAD during her initial coaching season back in 2017. She performed Volunteer Assistant Coach duties last season. Barr, formerly known as Gainer, was a four-year standout for the Chattanooga Volleyball program from 2012-15 and will be involved in all of our off-the-court coaching staff, program, and student-athlete development processes as well as home matches.
Yensho will begin her first season on the Chattanooga bench in 2019, taking over for Barr in the Volunteer Assistant Coach position. Yensho previously served as a Sports Psychology Consultant within both the Indoor and Beach programs at Georgia State in nearby Atlanta over the last two seasons. While at UTC, she will assist in team travel, summer camps, training/coaching team defense and blocking systems, in addition to continuing her work with our program as a sports psychologist. An already familiar face within the program, Yensho worked with the team this past spring in a sports psychologist role.
She completed her M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and School Counseling from Regent University in 2015 after finishing her B.A. as a Psychology major and Sociology minor from Christopher Newport University in 2010.