Sayles Comes Home To Coach

By David Howell

Editor

WATER VALLEY – The introductions were easy for newly hired Blue Devils girls basketball coach Bernadette Sayles last Thursday when she met with her team for the first time.  Many of the girls already knew her from coaching at Coffeeville or from the community and she had even shared time on the court with some of their parents during her high school years at Water Valley, where she played in junior high and high school before graduating in 2000.

But the decision to leave Coffeeville High School after coaching nine years was a little more difficult.

“It was bittersweet,” Sayles acknowledged, “But I am excited I get to come back home, this is where it all started for me. I know many of you have big dreams and they are accomplishable,” she told the girls in the locker room. 

Sayles also shared her basketball journey with the group, starting in the eighth grade when she attended camp at Delta State University (DSU) and decided that was where she wanted to play collegiate ball. DSU started recruiting her when she was a junior and she earned a basketball scholarship at the university and played for five years after receiving medical redshirt as a freshman due to a knee injury. 

Sayles’ credentials at Coffeeville include four straight division tournament wins including a year where they missed going to state by one game. The last three years at Coffeeville, she characterized more as rebuilding years.  She will replace Jason Purdy as the girls’ coach. Purdy will switch to coaching the Blue Devils boys’ team, taking over from Larry Taylor who led the team for the last three years.  

“It’s going to a roll-your-sleeves up kind of job,” Sayles acknowledged about taking over a program that has struggled in recent years. .

“One thing about my program, we are going to work. We are going to start in the summer, that is when you get better.  But it is going to be like a family, a sisterhood,” Sayles also told the team. 

Sayles will start at Water Valley at the end of the school year, after finishing up coaching track for the Pirates.