WYNNE — The Wynne School District did not have to look far to find a replacement for outgoing head volleyball coach Shatel Gaines.
The Wynne School Board recently named Blair McClanahan, who has been the junior high head coach for the past four years, as the interim varsity head coach.
McClanahan is a Wynne High School graduate and played volleyball for the Lady Jackets. She said becoming head coach has been a full circle journey.
“I’m excited to take on this new role. Obviously, it means a lot to me to be here coaching for my alma mater,” she said. “I’m just really excited to get started with this group of kids. We’re going to start practice next week. This group of seniors I was actually their head coach when they were in eighth grade so I’ve been with them for several years. I’m just really excited to see what they can do this upcoming season.”
The Lady Jackets have been very successful in volleyball in recent years. McClanahan said there is a reason for that.
“The girls come in every day looking to work hard and they want it,” she said. “They are a group of girls that want to get better and they want to come in and they want to work hard every day. I think when you have a group like that that wants to get better and wants to work hard, you’re going to have success.”
McClanahan said she believes the team will be successful again next year.
“We have six seniors returning. We have an All-State setter returning for us. We have four All-Conference players returning and two Best Under the Sun players returning,” she said. “I think that we’re going to have some success this year. We should be pretty successful in that.
“We’re going to have a little bit of an older team this year with some experience. But what’s kind of strange about this team is we only have one junior and then we have 12 sophomores,” McClanahan added. “We have some experience but then we have a big group of young players coming in too. I’m hoping those younger players can take a lot and learn from those six seniors.”
