Kirk Academy’s Robin Chastain will have a big game change come next fall.
The fourth-year Raiderettes basketball coach recently announced her resignation after accepting the position of Head of School at her alma mater, Marvell Academy, in Marvell, Ark.
“I’m excited about it; it’s bittersweet,” Chastain said after her junior varsity team finished its season with a loss to North Delta in tournament play. “I was glad that our last varsity home game was a win over North Delta; that was pretty awesome.”
The change will take Chastain off the basketball court for the first time in more than two decades after she started playing Pee Wee basketball in 1994. She continued her playing career at Marvell Academy under former KA coach Mike Reans. Following graduation in 2002, she played four years of collegiate basketball – two years at Delta State University and two more at Arkansas Tech in Russellville, Ark. – before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in physical education at Arkansas State in Jonesboro, Ark., where she also performed her student teaching. Her first coaching job was at Pillow Academy.
“I’ve got to get my master’s (degree) to be qualified to do the job through the MAIS (Midsouth Association of Independent Schools),” Chastain said. “They have a Leadership Institute and they partner with MC (Mississippi College).”
During that time, Chastain will focus on her new career in administration and finish the two-year master’s program, which involves nine courses and 33 credit hours.
“I didn’t want to spread myself too thin,” Chastain said. “With coaching, being head of school and doing my master’s, I feel like one would suffer if I did all of it.”
However, the plan is for the veteran coach to get back on the court in 2024.
“The lady that is coaching the girls now, I grew up with; I’ve known her all of my life and have gone to church with her all my life,” Chastain said. “It will take two years for me to finish my master’s and in the meantime, Kathy Wilson, who is the coach, has a niece that plays and she’ll be graduating in two years. So, by the time she gets through coaching her, she said she would be ready to step down and then I would take over. That’s the plan; who knows what will happen between now and then.”
Despite the career change, Chastain said she was not considering leaving Grenada.
“I definitely was not looking to leave; they’ve approached me every year for the past few years about basketball,” Chastain explained. “And this year when I got the call, I was thinking the same thing, basketball. I just knew with it being a smaller school – there’s only like 180 students – as far as financially, it would not be feasible for me to do. When they called about the head of school, I was not expecting it at all.”
With the new opportunity presented, Chastain said being able to make the change in familiar territory helped her make the decision to leave.
“A lot of the students that go there, I went to school with their parents, I know the families” she said. “My first cousin’s wife is the elementary principal, I’ve got several teachers that will be working for me that taught me; the lady that pulled my first tooth is still working there, my kindergarten teacher.”
Chastain added that she believed if she was going to make a change, the timing was right.
“I knew that I wouldn’t be able to coach forever; I knew at some point I would need to get into administration,” she said. “I’m kind of at the point in my life – I’ll be 38 in April – that if I’m going to make the transition, it probably needs to be now. It just made sense going home and doing it in an environment where I know everybody; it’s home. Mom and dad are there and they are not getting younger.”
Word traveled fast after Chastain accepted her new position and turned in her resignation on Jan.18. Home games against Rossville, Tenn., were canceled that day, so she held a team meeting in the locker room to fill her team in on her decision before they found out elsewhere.
“I didn’t get one word out before I started crying,” Chastain recalled. “Just the looks on their faces, they were completely shocked; they had no clue. I’m thankful that they hadn’t heard from anyone else. But they knew something was wrong when I got upset. I think that speaks to how much I care about them and this school.”
Chastain admitted that she wanted to wait as long as she could before making her announcement.
“I had every intention to wait until our seasons were over – junior high and high school – but word got out and when I heard a few people in Grenada knew, I knew that I better go tell my players because I didn’t want them to hear from anybody, but me.”
As for her players, Chastain encouraged them to express their feelings.
“I told them, ‘If you’re mad, be mad. If you’re happy, be happy. You have the right to feel however you’re going to feel,’” Chastain said. “I told them that they had every right to feel hurt or upset, but one thing I don’t want to happen is for this to ruin the rest of our season because they know that they have the potential to do great things and to go deep into the postseason. I told them that I didn’t want this to derail them from our mission.”
At practice that Wednesday, the shock had worn off and the players embraced the change.
“There was a lot of hugging, a lot of crying,” Chastain said. “Once they got over the shock and let it sink in, I think it’s flipped a switch with them. Their response and how hard they came in and worked the next day encouraged me. A lot of teams – depending on your players – may have thrown in the towel. I don’t want the focus taken away from how successful that they’ve been the past four years.”
Heading into this season, Chastain had a total of 159 wins coaching the Raiderettes. The junior varsity finished its season with a 13-9 record, while the varsity team sports a 19-6 record this season heading into the Class AAAA, District 1 Tournament at Rossville, Tenn., this Friday. The team received a bye after earning the No. 1 seed with the regular season District title.
As for the weeks to come, work has already started for Chastain at Marvell Academy as she interviews candidates for the head coach of the school’s 8-man football team. She is also anticipating her 20-year reunion, which is coming up this year.
“How crazy is that for a reunion,” Chastain concluded.
