Nation Ford hires Edwards to coach girls basketball

With a proven track record for winning, Kate Edwards has been hired as the new head girls’ basketball coach at Nation Ford High School.

Edwards comes to the Fort Mill School District from North Carolina and Parkwood High in Monroe, where she compiled a 58-18 record over the past three seasons. Her Parkwood teams won the Rocky River Conference Championship each of those years.

She was also conference coach of the year each season during that run.

“We had a lot of success at Parkwood,” Edwards said. “We built a pretty good program there.”

A graduate of Wingate University in 2008, Edwards played college basketball there and was part of three South Atlantic Conference championships. Edwards, who lives nearby and is a member of the Anne Springs Close Greenway, said she had always kept her eye on Fort Mill schools for the right opportunity to pop.

“I have always been involved in basketball and it been what I have always wanted to do,” she said.

“Fort Mill has a great reputation of having a great school district. When Nation Ford came open, it has great facilities and great kids. I have heard nothing but positive things and I just wanted to be part of something great.”

Edwards will be teaching PE at the school and said one of her primary goals from the start is to create a foundation for the girls’ basketball program.

“That is something me and the girls will talk a lot about, setting the expectation for the future of Nation Ford basketball players,” she said.

“In regards to short term goals, one of them is to be competitive every night. We will harp on this summer the fundamentals and sharpen them up and see what we have. As a coach at the high school level, one of the main things is to use basketball to teach life skills and you do that by learning teamwork, how to communicate, how to take constructive criticism. And I try to keep all that in mind as I coach my own teams.”

Before going to Parkwood High, Edwards spent two years at Hoke County High in Raeford, N.C., coaching basketball as well. She has also coached volleyball and softball in the past.

This story was originally published May 27, 2016 at 4:45 PM with the headline "Nation Ford hires Edwards to coach girls basketball."