Kenny Edwards is in his first year as the athletic director at Merrimack Valley High School, after seven years in the same position at Jamestown High School in Williamsburg, Va. He talked about his early impressions of New Hampshire athletics, what makes a successful athletic director and his goals for the MV athletic department.
The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and space. To listen to the full unedited interview, you can check out this week’s episode of The Monitor Sports Podcast.
Q: What’ve your early impressions been of New Hampshire fall sports?
Edwards: I’ve been very impressed. There’s some really good teams, including our own, some excellent coaching and some very, very talented student-athletes in New Hampshire. It’s been a lot of fun getting to know different teams, different schools, different coaches, and I’ve been very impressed with the play on the fields so far.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about your background and what you did before coming to MV?
Edwards: Most recently, I was the athletic director at Jamestown High School in Williamsburg, Virginia. I was there for seven years. [I] also served as the Virginia state Athletic Director’s Association president for the 2021-22 school year. Prior to going to Jamestown, I was a high school basketball coach and P.E. teacher for a number of years in Virginia Beach. I also coached college basketball for a year at the Division III level and for four years at the Division I level.
Q: I imagine the athletics culture is a little bit different when you compare Virginia and New Hampshire. Are there any big differences that stand out to you?
Edwards: I think there’s a great emphasis on sportsmanship in New Hampshire, and I think that our student-athletes and our coaches, our spectators are making a real effort in terms of developing a good reputation or continuing the good reputation for Valley in terms of sportsmanship. Some other things that stand out are the just the competitive nature of the different games. Our student-athletes compete with some very good teams, and they show great determination, their resilience, and it’s been a lot of fun watching them overcome some adversity. A lot of our teams are having great seasons so far this fall.
Q: What have been a couple of key areas of focus for you since you’ve taken this role?
Edwards: Continuing the outstanding work that Kevin O’Brien did here for a number of years. We don’t want to change a whole lot with the athletic department because it’s in great shape. Kevin did a fantastic job. What we want to do is just enhance what’s already in place. Some of the things that we’ve done so far, we’ve started a weekly athletics newsletter, which is meant to increase communication with all our constituents, our parents, our student-athletes, our coaches, our members of the community that follow our sports teams, and that’s been pretty well received so far. We’ve tried to develop a social media presence through Instagram. We’ve started an athletic department Instagram, as well as a Merrimack Valley Hall of Fame Instagram page. And then we’ve just tried to enhance the different gameday procedures that we use for a lot of our sports. Whether it’s announcing the starting lineups or changing some of the things we do to try to make it a memorable experience for our student-athletes.
Q: What do you think makes a successful athletic director at the high school level?
Edwards: I think first and foremost you have to understand why you’re in this position, and for me, it’s to support our student-athletes, to try to make high school athletics a memorable experience for everyone involved. Every decision I make is based on the student-athletes and their well-being and what we can do to try to help them. That, I think, is the first step for a good athletic director. And then, of course, communication. There’s basically no way to over communicate in this position.
Q: It seems like everybody that I’ve talked to around Merrimack Valley athletics has really praised the work that you’ve done and the relationships that you’ve established with the players, with the coaches. You mentioned communication, what other things have you done to build those relationships?
Edwards: Leadership at this position, leadership is face to face. There’s a time for email and text and so forth, but to develop relationships and to really get to know people, it has to be face-to-face leadership where you take the time to get to know everybody and get to know what motivates people, what they like and don’t like, what they’re thinking. When I work events, I try to be as accessible to people as possible. I walk around, try to talk to as many people as I can. The athletic director position, particularly at the high school level, is all about relationships and that bridge between the high school athletic department and the community that you serve as well as the parents, the student-athletes and the coaches. And again, it’s an ongoing process. Everyday you work harder to build better relationships, to solidify the programs within the community so we’re getting the needed support. The Valley community has been fantastic in the way that it’s received some of the things we’re doing. It’s just been a lot of fun so far, so we’ve really enjoyed it.
Q: What’re a few things that maybe you haven’t had the time to do yet or haven’t been necessary to do yet that you want to plan to do moving forward for the MV athletic community?
Edwards: I’m glad you asked that. I’m really excited about a couple of things. Number one, we’ve started a girls’ volleyball club this year with the hopes of developing into a JV program next year and a varsity program in two years. That would be a fall sport for us. Currently, we have approximately 20 girls involved in that. We’ve had the great opportunity to scrimmage against some JV and freshman programs in the area just to give our student-athletes a chance to see what volleyball looks like on the high school level. We’ve recently entered into a co-op with Bishop Brady for boys’ ice hockey. I’m excited to get that program off the ground at Valley and provide an opportunity for our student-athletes. In the future, there’s a couple of things that we’ve talked about possibly adding down the road. The first one would be esports, which I believe is one of the fastest-growing high school sports in the country. Esports would give us a chance to reach a segment of our school’s student population that maybe traditional athletics can’t reach, but it provides an opportunity for them to compete for Merrimack Valley, maybe in a setting that’s a little unique to athletics, but it’s something we’re really excited about exploring. Then also down the road, possibly exploring a bowling team because there has been some interest for that as well.
Q: Esports? I haven’t really heard about that being much of a thing in terms of high school-sanctioned competition, but it seems like you’ve heard a good deal about it and there’s a lot of interest?
Edwards: I’ll tell you an interesting story. When I was at Jamestown, probably four years ago, I got an email about how the Virginia high school league was going to start esports as an exploratory sport, so I wrote that I had done some reading about esports, and I was concerned about mental health issues. The Virginia high school league responded by immediately placing me on the esports committee, so I served on the committee for a couple of years and really got to understand the ins and outs of esports and kind of change of my thinking 180 degrees because it does reach that segment of the population in the school that a traditional on-the-field or on-the-court sport just can’t reach. There are students that are really excited about gaming. They want to compete for their high school in some way, and so this kind of merges those two schools of thought.
Q: We’ve covered a lot of ground, anything else you want to add about coming over from Virginia to New Hampshire, your athletic director responsibilities?
Edwards: The only thing I would say is I’m very appreciative to the community here at Valley, the administration and the students and coaches. They’ve all been very welcoming not only to myself but to our family as well. And the NHADA, the New Hampshire Athletic Directors’ Association has also been very welcoming, and they’ve really helped me a lot. Mike Desilets at Bow has really stepped forward and given me a lot of great advice, and so it’s been a lot of fun getting to know everybody, and we’re looking forward to a great ending to our fall season and a great winter and spring season as well.