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Head coach Jovan Vavic, one of the top water polo coaches in the country, serves a dual role as the head coach of both the USC men's and women's teams. He has been with the USC women's program since its inception in 1995, and has led his men's and women's teams to national championships twice in the same school year (the men in 1998 and 2003 and the women in 1999 and 2004). In his 11th season at the helm of the men's program, Vavic led the Trojans to the 2005 NCAA Men's Water Polo Championship and was named 2005 National Coach of the Year. Vavic brings a 300-104 (.743) all-time record on the women's side into the 2008 season -- his 14th as the women's head coach. Since 1999 when the program was fully funded, Vavic's record is 229-37 (.861) with an even more impressive 181-26 (.874) record in his last seven seasons. He earned his 300th career with with the Women of Troy in the third-place game of the 2007 NCAA Tournament -- a 13-6 win over UC San Diego on May 13, 2007. In 2007, USC finished third at both the MPSF and NCAA tournaments, going 22-6 overall. His 2006 Women of Troy raced undefeated through the regular season and finished second in the NCAA Tournament, falling in the last second to UCLA in a 9-8 decision that left the Trojans with a 27-3 overall record. For the first time in school history, Vavic saw two of his players earn collegiate water polo's highest honor, as Juraj Zatovic and Lauren Wenger made it a Trojan sweep of the Peter J. Cutino Award for the 2005 men's and 2006 women's seasons. Vavic pulled a coaching double sweep when he was named 2003 National Coach of the Year and MPSF Coach of the Year for the men and 2004 National Coach of the Year and MPSF Coach of the Year for the women, and he was named 2005 MPSF and National Coach of the Year once again on the men's side following the Trojans' most recent NCAA title. His 2004 women's team became the first team in NCAA Championship history to go undefeated (29-0) during the regular season. Vavic oversaw the team's move from Division II in 1995 to Division I in 1996. He guided USC to its first-ever Division I National Collegiate Championships appearance in 1997 and a seventh-place national finish while the 1998 team took fifth nationally. The 2000 squad added another strong showing as the Trojans finished second nationally. In 1999, Vavic was named the National Coach of the Year and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Coach of the Year. The 2004 squad won the national championship, becoming the first team in the brief five-year history of the NCAA-sponsored championship to go undefeated with a 29-0 record. Vavic earned MPSF Coach of the Year honors. Vavic came to USC in 1992 as an assistant men's water polo coach, joined John Williams as Troy's co-head coach in 1995 and took over the men's head coaching reins in 1999 after Williams retired. He and Williams were named National Coaches of the Year in 1998 after leading USC to its first-ever national championship. They were also named MPSF Co-Coaches of the Year in 1996 after leading USC to the conference title. In fact, in the 1998-99 season, Vavic did something no other coach has accomplished as his teams won three national championships: besides capturing the 1998 men's and 1999 women's titles, his 1999 men's club team won the Men's Senior National Club Championship. In his 12 seasons with the men's program, Vavic has improved his career coaching record on the men's side to 265-54 (.831). In his tenure as men's head coach, Vavic boasts a winning record against all opponents on the men's side of the game, recording only two losses in 12 seasons against teams outside the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. He is 192-52 against MPSF men's teams since 1995. Vavic brought home the school's second men's national championship in the 2003 season as the Trojans went 24-3 and defeated host Stanford, 9-7, in overtime in the title match. He also earned National Coach of the Year and MPSF Coach of the Year honors. In January of 2005, Vavic was named Men's Elite Zone Coach of the Year by U.S. Water Polo for the coastal California region. The 45-year-old Vavic, a native of Yugoslavia, spent the 1991 season as an assistant men's coach at UCLA. Previously, he coached three seasons (1987-1990) at Palos Verdes (Calif.) High, where he led Palos Verdes to two undefeated Pioneer League seasons (1988-89). In the summer of 1995, Vavic served as an assistant water polo coach at the World University Games. Last summer, Vavic was the head coach for the U.S. team that finished eighth at the WUG and narrowily missed a chance to play in the medal round after losing to Serbia Montenegro, 12-10, in a shootout. Vavic graduated from UCLA in 1992 with a bachelor's degree in history. He and his wife, Lisa, have four children: Nikola Monica, Marko and Stefan. |
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