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Asheboro volleyball coach Kelly Smith headshot

Asheboro turns to Eastern Randolph alum as volleyball coach

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ASHEBORO – Kelly Smith has been hired as the new volleyball coach at Asheboro.

Smith will be the team’s third volleyball coach in three years. She replaces Kim Black, whose third stint as head coach of the program lasted just one year.

Smith, an Eastern Randolph alum, was coach of her alma mater’s volleyball team in 2017 and 2018 before going to Southern Guilford for three years. She spent time as volleyball and girls’ basketball coach at Southern Guilford, though without a winning season.

She has been away from varsity competition during this school year.

“I felt like I wanted to come back into the gym,” Smith said of returning to the varsity level.

Smith was a volleyball and basketball standout at Eastern Randolph, graduating in 2006. She played basketball collegiately at West Virginia and East Carolina.

In 2022, Asheboro went 7-15 with a 4-6 record in the Mid-Piedmont Conference. Black, who guided the Blue Comets to the 1994 Class 3-A state championship, is the all-time winningest coach in Asheboro volleyball history with a 253-112 record.

Smith works as a physical education teacher at North Asheboro Middle School. She said in her time with Asheboro City Schools that she has felt connected to the high school because of the close relationship between the district’s schools.

While she didn’t attend Blue Comets volleyball matches in 2022, she saw some practices because the high school team used the middle school gym while renovations take place at the high school.

During the past few months, Smith has coached volleyball and girls’ basketball at the middle school. She said she intends to remain as the volleyball coach at North Asheboro Middle School with that season in the second half of the school year. With middle school operating for grades 6-12, she could have a seven-year connection with some players.

“It works perfect,” she said.

Smith, who lives in Franklinville, said an Eastern Randolph-Asheboro non-conference volleyball match has been scheduled for 2023.

Asheboro volleyball coach Kim Black Aug2022

Blue Comets spike Trinity in Black’s coaching return as new season begins

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Coach Kim Black directs her team during Monday night’s season opener vs. Trinity. (PJ Ward-Brown/Randolph Record)

ASHEBORO – Kim Black came back as a winner as Asheboro’s volleyball coach.

Black’s third stint as coach of the Blue Comets began with Monday night’s 25-19, 25-17, 25-14 non-conference sweep of visiting Trinity at North Asheboro Middle School.

Kaylen Nance provided 23 assists and Piper Davidson had 12 digs and eight kills for Asheboro. Sarah Hildreth’s six kills and three aces and Ellen Long’s five kills and four blocks also helped the cause for the Blue Comets.

Black, the winningest coach in the program’s history, made other coaching stops since last guiding Asheboro in 2011. She directed past Blue Comets teams to three state finals, winning the Class 3-A state championship in 1994.

Madison Burgiss’ 21 assists and Sarabeth Johnson’s nine kills and four aces paced Trinity.

Monday marked the first day of competition for fall season sports in the North Carolina High School Athletic Association. A slate of boys’ soccer games involving area teams was wiped out because of inclement weather or wet conditions, with make-up dates for those games set for later in the week.

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Black returns to Asheboro volleyball team

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ASHEBORO – It turns out Kim Black was pulled back to Asheboro High School volleyball after all.

She’ll be in her third stint as coach of the program, where she won a state championship, when the season begins in the late summer.

“I can’t make any promises except to promise to do my best,” Black said.

She’s the all-time winningest coach at Asheboro, holding a 246-97 record as a varsity coach. She directed the Blue Comets to three state finals, including the Class 3-A title in 1994, and eight conference crowns.

Black has made the rounds among schools in Randolph County, but she made it clear that one school holds a special place for her.

“My volleyball heart has always been at Asheboro,” she said.

She has been filling a part-time position as a math teacher at the school. When athletics director Steve Luck and assistant Owen George showed up at her classroom proposing that she give coaching another try, she couldn’t turn them down.

“I never expected to do this again,” she said last week. “There’s a lot of work to be done on my end. Until three weeks ago, I would have never thought I would do this again. If I can come to help things and do some good, that’s what I want to do.”

She coached a season at Southwestern Randolph (her alma mater) and later figured she had retired from schools when she retired from her math position there in 2020.

“She will do a great job,” Luck said.

Her first season with Asheboro came in 1988. Then she was away from the Blue Comets for about a decade before returning in 2008 for four more seasons. Along the way, she coached at Trinity and spent the 2013 season directing the Uwharrie Charter Academy team. There were also a few years with South Asheboro Middle School.

Under Black, the Blue Comets reached regional finals in five consecutive years in the 1990s, advancing to state finals in 1993-95.

Now-former coach Karen Blanchard directed the Blue Comets for eight seasons. Last season, Asheboro went 5-16, including a 2-8 mark in the Mid-Piedmont Conference. The Blue Comets were swept in 12 of their defeats.

That snapped a streak of at least eight consecutive winning seasons, with several records of 20-plus wins during that stretch.

The 2021 team had two seniors. Black said she’s not familiar with the players who’ll make up the roster, other than one girl who had been in one of her math classes.

Sixty girls showed up at a meeting last week.

“I’ll probably do a lot of the same things (as in the past),” Black said. “Heart and soul, that’s really what you win with.”

Black said her interest was mostly basketball as a youth. Eventually that changed, but she had to come to a better understanding of the sport.

“The girls (on early teams) were really interested and we started going to camps and we started learning together,” she said. “Volleyball won my heart over.”

So even though Black figured she wouldn’t return to the court, she’s bound to be excited to be back.

“I love it,” she said. “It really broke my heart when I walked away from it. I think about it a lot.”