Paying it forward

From the very first day that Pine Prairie head coach Renotta Edwards held a basketball in her hands, she felt a passion for the game that has consumed a huge portion of her life.
Now, almost 25 years later, the fiery competitor that once roamed the college basketball courts as a player is now imparting that passion to her young Lady Panther squad.
“I think she is the best thing that has happened to us,” said junior guard Tori Bordelon. “Before her we did not know how to play as a team. She has shown us that in order for us to win we have to be able to play together.”
Edwards in her second year at the helm of the Lady Panthers, has brought a tenacity to the players that had not been seen the year before she got there.
“We are going to get after you on the court,” commented Edwards. “That is the one thing that I learned from my playing days in high school and college. I was fortunate enough to have some amazing mentors. I am just trying to pass that knowledge and aggressive attitude on to these players.”
Apparently, what Edwards is teaching is filtering down to her team.
After taking over a team that was winless in 2014-15, Pine Prairie won three games last season, Edwards’ first at the helm.
This year, the Lady Panthers have won seven games to date and have shown improvement in every outing thus far.
“All I ask them to do is just to get one percent better everyday,” said Edwards. “If they do that good things will follow.”
Amazingly, her career as a mentor and coach never would have come to fruition if not for a fateful, half-joking conversation Edwards had with an assistant coach at Northwestern State University.
“After I finished my playing time at Northwestern, I stayed an extra semester and would come and play against the other girls,” stated Edwards. “I found myself coaching them while I was playing. One of the assistant coaches, Diamond Crosby, told me in a half-kidding way that I would make a good coach.”
“It got me thinking. So, I called my former coach at LSU-E, Coach Berry, and told him I was interested in giving coaching a shot, so he hired me on.”
Edwards already had a grasp of what it meant to play on the college level.
After a stellar career at Ville Platte High School, where she earned all-state honors her senior year, Edwards chose LSU-E to showcase her talents.
When her two years were up with the Lady Bengal basketball team, she moved on to Northwestern State and finished her college career as a Lady Demon.
The next year, Edwards was named as the assistant coach at LSU-E, where she spent two years.
Edwards was then offered a job as an assistant at Northwood University, a NAIA school in Cedar Hill, Texas.
From there Edwards returned home and found herself taking the head coaching job at Pine Prairie; something that as a young woman in high school would have never crossed her mind.
“I wanted to be a physical therapist in high school,” stated Edwards. “I never thought in a million years I would be the head coach at Pine Prairie.”
Edwards loved her job at Northwood and the proximity to the city life of Dallas.
However, the need to be around family brought her back to Evangeline Parish and the job she now possesses.
No matter what brought her back, the Lady Panthers are most definitely the beneficiary of Edward’s new found calling.