Tom Justice is Lock Haven University volleyball. Justice launched the volleyball program at LHU 15 seasons ago, and has built it into a dominant team in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) and a perennial noise-maker at the national level.

Justice generalled the 2004 squad to a 28-4 record, helping him to the elite 300-win plateau. The squad took first in the PSAC West with an 8-2 mark, and also won their second-straight PSAC and NCAA East Regional Championships.

Since helping start the program 15 seasons ago, Justice has guided Lock Haven volleyball to an impressive 306-186 record. The program’s success has been particularly evident over the past two years, as Justice has directed the Lady Eagles to a 59-10 mark and a record of 16-4 in the PSAC Western Division.

After struggling in the early years, the Lady Eagles hit their stride as a program in 1995 when they won their first PSAC Championship.  Since then they finished first in the PSAC regular season rankings in all but two years, and they have qualified for the NCAA playoffs every year except 2002. 

The Haven volleyball team won PSAC championship tournament titles in 1996, 1999, 2000, 2003 and 2004 and won NCAA Atlantic Region championships in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2004, advancing to the NCAA Division II Elite Eight on each of those occasions. Coach Justice has been named the PSAC Western Division Coach of the Year on three occasions, and has also merited two Atlantic Region Coach of the Year honors.

As Justice has overseen the progress of the program from a club team to a national contender, he has guided 33 players to multiple All-PSAC West honors while another 17 have earned All-Atlantic Region accolades.  In 2004, middle hitter Li YiZhi won Lock Haven’s second All-America honor (Daktronics/first team) after guiding the team to the Elite Eight. 

A native of Denver, Justice attended Colorado State University for two years before transferring to the University of Colorado in 1966 where he finished up his wrestling career in the Big 8. From there he moved to Southern Illinois University where he served as an assistant coach for four years, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1971 before obtaining his master's degree in 1972. He worked in the high school wrestling coaching ranks for several years, and was an assistant on four U.S. Junior World wrestling teams including three who won World Championships.  He arrived at Lock Haven in 1985 as an assistant coach with the Bald Eagle wrestling program, then changed gears and took over the head coaching reigns of the swimming and volleyball programs from 1991 through 1998, when he gave up the swimming to concentrate solely on volleyball. He has decades of coaching experience in wrestling, swimming and volleyball under his belt, and is also an NSCA and US Weightlifting certified strength coach, which has been a significant advantage in developing the strength and vertical leap ability of his teams.

He is married to the former Peggy Mitchell of Mt. Zion, Ill., also an SIU graduate.  The Justices have three children, Stephanie (30), Kimberly (28) and Thomas, Jr. (26).  Stephanie is a graduate of Colorado State and both Kim and Thomas are Lock Haven graduates.

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