FIRST SEASON: 2016-2017
- 2020 Louisiana Sportswriters Association Coach of the Year
- Two-Time Louisiana Cup Champion (both as an amateur and a professional)
Jeff Lorio enters his eighth season on the Lakefront in 2023-2024 after leading the University of New Orleans Golf squad to a second place finish at last season’s Southland Championship – the school’s best finish at any conference championship since 2010.
Replacing 11-year veteran Chris McCarter as head coach on Sept. 9, 2016, Lorio made an immediate impact on a program struggling to transition back towards full Div. I status. His first signing class of Brady Bennett, Max Hellstrom, Nolan Lambert and Ulisses de Toledo Jr. quickly became stalwarts of an improving program.
Lorio was named the 2020 Louisiana Coach of the Year by the LSWA after the Privateers finished the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season with the best scoring average in team history (289.850). On March 3rd Lorio led his young squad to the program's first 54-hole tournament victory in over a decade - winning the Gulf Coast Collegiate in Diamondhead, Mississippi. A year later Grayson Gilbert became the first individual Privateer to win a 54-hole tournament since 2010 after a pair of sudden death playoff holes at the 2021 Colin Montgomerie Invitational.
The Privateers have improved their stroke average from one season to the next in four of Coach Lorio’s seven complete seasons at the helm. The 2019-2020 squad set a school record with a 10.76 stroke improvement from 2018-2019. Each returning member of that team improved their personal stroke average by four or more strokes.
Former student-athletes Jackson Smith and Hellstrom became the first Privateer All-Southland selections in school history following the 2018-19 season while Gilbert (first team) and Florian Moosmeier (second team) became the first Privateer student-athletes to be named to the All-Louisiana Golf Team since 2010 following the 2019-20 season.
During his seven seasons in charge of the golf program Lorio has guided five Privateers to All-Southland status – Smith and Hellstrom in 2018-2019, Moosmeier in 2020-2021, Brady Bennett and Gilbert in 2021-2022, and Ryan Fulton last season. Fulton (2022-2023), Gilbert (2019-2020) and Moosmeier (2019-2020, 2020-2021) were also named All-Louisiana during his tenure.
Not just successful on the golf course, Coach Lorio’s student-athletes have earned recognition in the classroom as well. Markus Kreiger became the first Privateer to be selected for the Southland Conference’s F.L. McDonald Post Graduate Scholarship following the 2016-2017 season. All eight of UNO’s Srixon/Cleveland All-American scholars are from Coach Lorio’s tenure with Bennett (three times), Moosmeier (three times) and Hellstrom (two times) earning multiple selections.
Coach Lorio has also placed at least one golfer on the Southland All-Academic team at the conclusion of each of his seasons, most recently with Henry Augenstein earning the honor last season. Student-athletes from his program earned Southland Commissioner’s List status 37 times.
Prior to his arrival on the Lakefront Lorio spent three years with the crosstown Loyola Wolfpack men’s and women’s golf programs. In his lone season as an assistant in 2013-14, Lorio helped the Wolfpack women win the Emmanuel Invitational, finish runner-up at the Carey College Classic and SSAC Championship and posted a 20th-place showing at the NAIA National Championship. He also helped recruit a women’s class that ranked fifth in the nation by Golfstat.com.
Promotion to the head coaching spot followed a year later and Lorio helped guide the Wolfpack teams to one tournament victory and a combined four runner-up finishes in his two seasons as head coach. Along the way, Daria Delfino claimed medalist honors as she won the Freed-Hardeman Invitational from Oct. 12-13, 2015. Both teams showed improvement under his direction as the women’s team jumped from 36th nationally in the GolfStat.com standings in 2014-15 to 33rd a season later while the men’s program rose from 126th to 83rd during that same time.
Julchen Narwark claimed All-Southern States Athletic Conference honors both seasons under Lorio’s tutelage and a pair of student-athletes – Sarah Anne Smurlick in 2015 and Alexis Hazard in 2016 – claimed Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athlete recognition. In addition to success on the course, Lorio’s teams were spectacular in the classroom as well as Loyola student-athletes earned SSAC All-Academic recognition a combined 12 times during his tenure.
His recruiting efforts were a major reason for the Wolfpacks’ steady increase in productivity as Lorio landed student-athletes from 13 states and four foreign countries. Those recruits helped Loyola rank nationally among NAIA programs as the 2015-16 rookies ranked seventh by GolfStat.com on the women’s side and eighth on the men’s side.
Coach Lorio boasts an extensive competitive playing record that includes junior, Division I, amateur and professional competition. After capturing the Louisiana High School Athletic Golf Championship in 1994, Lorio began his collegiate career at ULM before finishing his eligibility and earning a Bachelor of Science degree in human resource management from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Lorio has twice competed in the Louisiana Cup, an event which pits the top amateurs in the state against the top professionals. He won the event as both an amateur in 2000 and a professional in 2008. In 2010, Lorio qualified for the United States Mid-Amateur Championship at Atlantic Golf Club in Bridgehampton, New York. Golf Week ranked Lorio in the Top 800 in the United States and Top 1,650 in the world among amateur players in 2012.
A native of Luling, Louisiana, Lorio completed his bachelor’s degree in human resource management from University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1999. He is married to the former Franchesca Boudreaux of Luling and the couple has one daughter, Vivian. Lorio has been on the board of Directors for the Louisiana Golf Association since 2017.
