Littlefield native, Kaylee Edgemon, is coming home to take over the Lady Cat Volleyball Program.
Born and raised in Littlefield, Edgemon graduated from LHS in 2017. She attended Eeastern New Mexico University for a year before transferred to Wayland Baptist University in 2018. She graduated from WBU in 2021 with a degree in General Studies Education.
Edgemon stated that this is her first official coaching job in a school, but she has been coaching in an AAU basketball organization for four years and she also trains kids in volleyball. She taught at Brownfield ISD last year.
Edgemon starred for the Lady Cats in volleyball, basketball and track and field during her time as a player, helping bring the first of many volleyball gold balls to the LHS trophy case.
Edgemon talked about being able to come back to head up the program she helped build, saying, “I’m super excited and it means so much to me to have this opportunity. I had an amazing coach in Coach Claire Head, and she was absolutely awesome. I’m excited to be able to now bring to these girls a little bit of what I had with Coach Head.”
She added, “One of my assistants is going to by Mallie McGehee, who was my setter when we were in High School. So, getting to do this together is going to be absolutely amazing. We have an amazing coaching staff with Coach Logan and my junior high coaches are awesome, so I’m really excited to try and help bring back the winning mentality for the girls.”
Edgemon talked about her time playing for Coach Head and her time as a college athlete and how she feels that prepared her to be a Head Coach, saying, “I definitely think it prepared me mentally. It’s a draining job, especially being an athlete, it’s a full time job, both physically and mentally. Now, I think it will be more on the mental side, but I think it also helped prepare me to be able to develop kids.”
She added, “I have had amazing coaches in my past; I’ve had several different college coaches and awesome high school coaches. Being able to take the good parts of every one of them and being able to put them together into my coaching will be really good.”
Edgemon talked about the philosophy she plans to bring to the Lady Cat’s Athletic Program, saying, “I think the biggest thing for me is going to be building relationships. A big reason why I didn’t want to go into college coaching was because sometimes it’s not really on a relationship level. But, in high school I get to build these relationships with these kids and teach them to love the game.”
She added, “They may not come in loving it originally, but at least they’ll have a respect for the game and a respect for me. Just really building those relationships so maybe later on in life they’re inviting me to their weddings. Coach Head is still one of my best friends, so I think it would be awesome to be able to build those kinds of relationships with these kids.”
Edgemon talked about what brought her back to Littlefield, stating, “I wanted to be around my family and they’re still here in Littlefield, so that was a big part of it.”
“Also, just coming back to my home town, I just wanted to come back home,” she explained. “So, when this job opened up and they offered it to me, there was just this peace I had about coming back home. I also have some nerves from not being here in a while, but my family is here, my boyfriend’s family is from here, so being able to come back home was really important to me.”
She talked about why she decided to get into coaching, explaining, “I think a lot of it had to do with the coaches that I had growing up, but I have to go back to the first coach that I ever had, which was my dad. He was just great. He did some coaching for me and growing up we kind of butted heads, but he was the one person I was looking up in the stands at, just for that peace and I want to be able to do the same thing for other kids.”
She added, “I think my had a lot to do with me loving the game, learning to love the game, loving the way that he coached me growing up, it was really cool. I want to do that for other people.”
Edgemon said that she is just looking forward to building those relationships, starting with the junior high and even younger.
“I want to let them know we can do big things and I just want us to have that mentality of winning,” she said. “I’m super excited about the relationships I’m going to build with people that I’ve grown up with and the kids I’m going to be coaching.”
Edgemon credited several of her previous coaches for inspiring her on her journey to becoming a head coach.
“My dad, and Coach Head and even my college coach Alesha Ellis; they were so hard on me, but in such a good way, because they knew what I was capable of, even when I didn’t believe it,”she said. “They believed I could and then they worked my butt off to make sure I got there. I think they pushed me past my limit and it was just enough to get me to where I wanted to go. Now I can do the same for my kids.”
Edgemon talked about what she likes to do in her free time, saying, “I love to work with kids, so I train kids in sports and I also like to spend time with my family.”