Wofford college head volleyball coach Lynze Roos announced the addition of Ladislav Lelkes to the coaching staff in February of 2023. Lelkes serves as the associate head coach under Roos, coming to Spartanburg after one season with Bradley. He enters his third season with the Terriers in 2025. In just his first two seasons with the Terriers, he helped guide the program to the 2023 adn 2024 Southern Conference Championships and berths to the NCAA Tournament.
“We are excited to add Ladislav to our staff,” said Roos. “He brings a strong recruiting background and outstanding on-court experience to our program. He has a wonderful reputation as a coach who builds strong relationships, and I look forward to seeing how he is able to elevate our current players as well.”
Wofford won a back-to-back SoCon Tournament championship in 2024, posting a 23-9 overall record to match the Terriers’ Division I era record for wins. Wofford was the No. 2 seed in the tournament, a program best, behind a program-record 12-4 SoCon clip en route to the title and a second consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance, this time traveling to Waco, Texas, to face Baylor. Wofford’s 15-2 home record is a program best, including a five-set triumph over No. 15 Tennessee to mark Wofford’s first-ever win over a ranked opponent. The Terrier block remained stout under Lelkes as Wofford led the conference with 273 total blocks and ranked third with 2.24 blocks per set. The total blocks are second most in a season in program history. Lelkes coached Bradley Brown to earn SoCon All-Freshman Team honors, and Annemarie Rakoski topped the conference with 133 blocks to rank fifth on Wofford’s all-time list for a season. With 1.10 blocks per set, Rakoski finished second in the league.
Lelkes wasted no time in helping the Wofford program reach new heights upon arriving to Spartanburg. In just his first season with the team, the Terriers won the SoCon Tournament, a first by any women's team sport at Wofford, and they secured a berth to the NCAA Tournament, another women's team sport first for Wofford. Though losing to No. 2 Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament, the Terriers posted a historic season with their 23 wins the most in the program's Division I era and the 15-3 home record also being a program best. Working primarily with the team's middle, Lelkes guided Sarah Barham and Millie Loehr to All-SoCon honors, as the seniors placed on the first- and second-teams, respectively. The duo topped the SoCon in blocks per set with Barham first at 1.28 and Loehr second at 0.98. Barham's 146 total blocks led the SoCon and finished 27th in the nation, and that tally topped her own single-season program record. Loehr's 107 blocks were third in the league. As a team, Wofford led the conference in blocks per set (2.57) and total blocks (295.5), and both marks set new program records.
Lelkes served as an assistant coach at the Division I level for seven years prior to joining the Terriers. He spent the 2022 season as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator with the Braves after serving in the same roles for the three seasons prior with Alabama, working directly with the Crimson Tide’s middle blockers.
Before joining the Tide, Lelkes served as an assistant in the Southern Conference with ETSU from 2017-19, helping the Buccaneers to a regular-season title in 2018. The Bucs earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament that season after winning the SoCon Tournament the year prior for back-to-back tournament berths.
Lelkes was a volunteer assistant coach with East Carolina for the 2016 season and had a two-year stint as an assistant with both the men’s and women’s volleyball teams at Barton College from 2014-16.
Lelkes earned a Bachelor’s Degree in political science from Barton in 2014. Before becoming a coach at his alma mater, he was a two-time letterwinner after transferring from Elmira College. Lelkes also helped his VKP Bratislava club team to two national championships and the Slovakian Cup Title.
