Out With the Drama, In With a Champion: USF Beach Volleyball Taps Stanford’s Jo Kremer
The Bulls go big in their second coaching search, hiring a rising star with championship DNA
South Florida’s beach volleyball program isn’t hitting the brakes — it’s hitting reset.
Less than two weeks after inaugural head coach Pri Piantadosi-Lima resigned on May 15 amid an internal athletic department investigation and a separate NCAA probe into practice hour violations, USF Athletics CEO Rob Higgins moved quickly. By Saturday, May 30, he had his answer: Jo Kremer, 30, a three-year assistant at Stanford and a three-time national champion as a player at USC.
The hire signals that USF isn’t shying away from ambition. Higgins called Kremer “the perfect leader” to build the program into a “perennial national contender,” language that matches the university’s broader investment in its athletics department, including a new lighted, six-court on-campus beach volleyball facility opening this fall.
Kremer arrives with serious credentials. As an assistant and scouting coordinator at Stanford, she helped the Cardinal post a 39-5 record this past season, win the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation title, and earn the No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, where they fell to UCLA in the championship match. Three of her players earned AVCA All-American honors.
Before Stanford, Kremer spent a season at Tulane, the same program the Bulls knocked off this year, before Cardinal head coach Andrew Fuller, who had previously coached Kremer as a player at USC, brought her to Palo Alto in 2023.
As a player, Kremer’s trophy case speaks for itself: two NCAA national titles at USC (2016, 2017), an AVCA title in 2015, an all-NCAA tournament selection, and the Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year award in 2018.
For the players who return next season, the message from Kremer was direct and forward-looking. “I am extremely excited about the roster and look forward to supporting these unbelievable young women on and off the sand,” she said in a statement. She emphasized a shared belief in women’s sports and the student-athlete experience, a pointed contrast, given the circumstances of the coaching change.
The Bulls finished their inaugural varsity season 21-15, winning two matches in the Conference USA Tournament. There’s a roster in place, a facility on the way, and now a coach whose résumé suggests the ceiling is high.
Stay tuned!