When Courtney Freeman was named the new volleyball coach at Clyde shortly before the beginning of the 2024 season, she immediately was met with an array of formidable challenges. 

Surprisingly, the biggest one wasn’t the fact that she was succeeding the highly successful Laura Carr in that position.

Carr led Clyde to the playoffs routinely throughout her nine-year stay there, and her 2023 team made it to the Region I-3A semifinals. 

Meanwhile, as Carr moved on after that season (to become an assistant principal in Wichita Falls ISD), so, too, did some of the better senior volleyball players in Clyde High School history. The cupboard Freeman inherited was far from bare, given the type of program Carr established, but it wasn’t filled with experienced, heirloom-quality athletes, the likes of which helped Carr make Clyde a perennial volleyball contender.