Whirlwind year brings Hampton grad closer to home for coaching job

Former Hampton star Laryn Edwards made national headlines over the winter when she transitioned from coach to player for the Providence women’s basketball team.

Little did she know, in a roundabout way, it would bring her all the way home.

“I would never have thought this was going to happen, that this would be my path,” Edwards said. “Everything happens for a reason.”

Edwards was hired as an assistant coach at Robert Morris on April 10 to join the staff of newly christened Colonials coach Chandler McCabe, who played at Providence from 2008-12.

McCabe’s ties to the Big East school paved the way for Edwards to land her first assistant coaching job at age 24, following a whirlwind 2023-24 season in which she made a graduate assistant-to-point guard move at Providence.

“Coach McCabe gave me this opportunity, being so young, which I appreciate a lot,” Edwards said. “I’m very excited to be able to work with her.”

Edwards, who played four years at Loyola (Md.) before being hired at Providence in July 2022, used her final year of eligibility last season for the short-handed Friars, trading her clipboard for sneakers. She appeared in 15 games, with nine starts.

“It was an adjustment,” she said. “I truly missed playing. But when I was playing, I was like, ‘Wow, I miss coaching.’”

With her coaching spot at Providence gone for next season — she is finishing up a graduate degree in sports management this month — Edwards was unsure where she would land for the 2024-25 season. But McCabe, a former UCF assistant, contacted the young coach from her alma mater after being hired at RMU on March 18 to replace Charlie Buscaglia.

“I wasn’t sure where I was going to go,” Edwards said. “I was keeping my options open. But then this worked out the way it worked out. I got pretty lucky being able to come home.”

McCabe called Edwards a “bright star” in the coaching profession, adding she will “bring a wealth of knowledge with her from competing and coaching in the Big East. Our girls are going to gravitate towards her genuine personality and learn from her immediately.”

Edwards was hired at RMU as assistant coach/director of basketball operations and joins a staff that also includes former Perry great and Oakland Catholic girls coach Eddie Benton. Edwards is enthusiastic to turn around the program at RMU, which has struggled to a 35-71 record since moving from the NEC to the Horizon League four seasons ago. The Colonials went 6-24 (2-18 in Horizon League) last season.

“I’m excited to take what I’ve learned — not only as a graduate assistant/coach but as a player — at a high Division I level and be able to translate it,” she said. “I want to be able to create great relationships with players. I was just in their shoes.”

Edwards had a busy April. She was picked by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) to take part in the “So You Want To Be A Coach” Program at the 2024 Women’s Final Four in Cleveland. She was one of 54 selected for the exclusive program, designed to assist aspiring coaches in getting Division I coaching opportunities.

Less than a week later, Edwards was officially hired at RMU.

“It’s wild,” Edwards said. “If you think about it, I was a graduate assistant, a Division I player and now an assistant coach, all in the past six months.”