Her Howard Payne diploma may not even be mailed yet, but former Boyd volleyball star Rylee Spencer is already kickstarting her head coaching career as she steps in as the leader for Lindsay volleyball, one of the most respected programs in the state.
She sat down with the Messenger to talk about being part of a historic college team, prepping for her first year as a head coach, and the impact that her teammate, the late Ashley Fouts, left on the Boyd Lady Jackets volleyball program.
Editor’s note: Responses have been edited for length. The full interview on YouTube is linked at the bottom of this story.
BM: You graduated from Howard Payne in May, then get a call from Lindsay saying they want you on the staff, then actually end up taking the head coach job. How crazy has your life been from the time you crossed the stage up until now?
RS: I found out a week and a half before graduation that I’d end up being the head coach. I had a phone call with the AD and he told me everything I needed to start preparing for, and I kind of had an ‘Oh no’ moment at first. But we have a whole new coaching staff on the girls side with lots of experience, so they’ve been giving me lots of tips and advice and answering questions. … It’s been a lot, but it’s been fun learning what I need to get done.
BM: Lindsay is one of the premier programs in Texas, at least on the small school side. How excited are you to go to a place where there’s already a lot of history and success?
RS: I played Lindsay in high school, and I always knew they were a good team. I knew I wasn’t walking into a rebuild or anything like that, so I had high expectations going in. Once I got there and got to see the girls play, I was like, ‘OK, this makes my job a lot easier,’ because the girls already know what they’re doing. It’s a relief, but also a standard I have to uphold.
BM: At what point in your life did you know you wanted to be a coach?
RS: I always wanted to be around sports. Just from growing up, I can’t imagine not being around it. Some of the most important people in my life have been coaches, and I still talk to them to this day. I’ve actually kept all of my stuff from high school, like team contracts and scouting reports, because I knew I was probably going to use them in the future.
BM: Can you think of a point in time where you realized that you could get yourself through school by playing volleyball?
RS: Really not until my senior year of high school. I played on a team of girls who were very good and had been playing for a long time, and they played club. I never played club because it was during basketball season and I wanted to play basketball. Senior year, coach [Dusty] Crafton said a school was interested in me … so I went and toured there and thought, ‘Oh, I could reach out to other schools.’ I reached out to Howard Payne and got to go there.
BM: Those first two years at Howard Payne (2021 and 2022) were pretty tough sledding, but you jump to your junior year and are part of a pretty historic team. What do you remember about that change between sophomore and junior year … and did you know things were on the upswing?
RS: Freshman year we had a coach that ended up leaving, and then when I was a sophomore coach Josh [Gerig] came in, but he didn’t have a chance to recruit his people. Going into the summer of junior year, he had an open gym where his new girls got to come in, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re not going to have another year like that again.’ I knew it was going to be different, but I didn’t know all of the crazy things we were going to do.
BM: You had five blocks in a 3-1 win against UT Dallas in the conference tournament that year. Was that a game that still sticks out to you in your career?
RS: That was probably one of my best games and definitely one of the most fun games I’ve ever played. It was out first conference win, the first time a 6-seed beat a 3-seed and the first time Howard Payne ever beat UTD. That was their last year of D3 volleyball before they went to D2 … so we got to end their D3 career with a loss.
BM: Going back to your time at Boyd High School, how special was that 2018 team under Dusty Crafton that made the state championship match?
RS: Freshman year (2017), I actually got pulled up for playoffs. I wasn’t on varsity that year, but I got to experience playoffs. Then sophomore year I actually had to play the game. I was nervous at first, but then I kind of settled down and realized I just had to play volleyball. That year didn’t end how we wanted, but it was still a fun year.
BM: Sept. 5, 2019 was a day that really changed volleyball forever, and that was the passing of your teammate, Ashley Fouts. How were y’all able to navigate that time as a team, and maybe even grow closer together through the tragedy?
RS: Honestly, we relied on the Fouts family a lot, Liz and Bill. They would come and talk to us, we could go and talk to them and we would spend a lot of time at their house. I wouldn’t say we had to ask for permission, but we had a game pretty soon after that and Liz came and talked to us and told us she wanted us to play. She told us that Ashley would have wanted us to play. That has changed my life so much, going through that. I still talk to Liz pretty often, and at some point she wants to come talk to the Lindsay girls about Ashley and just being kind, because that’s what she was all about.
BM: You wore No. 2 in high school, but decided to take on Ashley’s No. 9 when you went to Howard Payne. Why did you feel the need to do that and uphold her legacy?
RS: I felt like it was something I was called to do. When I got to college and they had the available number listed out, I knew 9 was what I wanted. I just felt like it was something I could do to honor her and to remember why she’s one of the reasons I still played volleyball, and why I grew to love volleyball. I also had a blue hair tie I wore for her every game of college. Liz could see that and know that I was wearing that because I was honoring Ashley.
BM: When you return to Wise County to play Alvord and Chico, is that going to be a weird feeling for you, just having grown up down the road from those places and there as a coach now and not a player?
RS: Well, our first scrimmage is actually at Boyd, so my first coaching experience is going to be there. I’m actually really excited.
BM: Do you think you’re going to get a red carpet rolled out or a standing ovation when you show up?
RS: I’m not sure, but I’m definitely going to show my girls my pictures on the wall.
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