Kim Meyer is set to succeed Butch Clark at the helm of the Liberty Christian girls basketball program. 

An assistant coach over the past two seasons, Meyer was recently named the head coach of the Lady Eagles. Meyer takes over for Clark, who led Liberty Christian to multiple Missouri Christian Schools Athletic Association state championships. Clark will coach the Liberty Christian boys basketball team after coaching both teams last season. 

“I’ve played basketball a lot of my life, so I have a passion for it, passion for the game… I really liked the role of being the assistant,” Meyer said. “So being a varsity, like the head coach is gonna be a completely different ballgame for me. It’s gonna be a different avenue, but I’m excited about it. I think it’s gonna be good, but it’s new, just really new.”

Meyer got involved with the Lady Eagles the past two years, when her nieces, Alli and Anna Meyer, were on the team. They both graduated last spring. 

While Meyer anticipates approaching coaching similarly to when she was an assistant, she did note there will be changes in the shift to the head coach role. She anticipates needing to teach the players more than last year, when she focused more on encouraging the players. 

Meyer stressed one of her biggest passions is to invest in the character of her players. 

“My number one goal is to help train them up and to apply these things to their daily lives,” Meyer said. “So that’s what I’m hoping to bring to them so that even when basketball’s long gone, they’re still taking these character building concepts with them throughout their lives as moms, as doctors, as nurses, as teachers. I want them to take those things and be able to apply them to their life.” 

Meyer inherits a team that has won multiple state championships. The Lady Eagles lost three starters from last year’s team. Meyer noted Liberty Christian lost a lot of players the past two years. 

She plans to focus on ball control, which she sees as a key to the Lady Eagles’ success this upcoming season. She said they need to know how to handle the ball and be confident. 

“I think that’s going to be a training process for us is the confidence level,” Meyer said. “They can do it. They just have to know they can do it.”

Meyer thinks her experience working on Clark’s staff over the past two seasons helped prepare her for the head coach role. While she played basketball years ago, it had been a while since she was around the game prior to coaching at Liberty Christian the past two seasons. 

“He (Clark) is just a head full of just knowledge, life knowledge, life skills and then of course the game,” Meyer said. “He is an incredible coach. I’ve been around a lot of coaches all my life playing multiple sports and he is probably one of the best coaches I’ve ever been around.” 

Meyer plans to focus on the process over the course of the upcoming season to help the players think long term. She also stressed it is ok for players to make a mistake. 

“I think that’s hard on players sometimes because they expect perfection out of themselves and it’s not a realistic goal,” Meyer said. “You’re going to mess up but it’s about how you get up. So I’m all about the process. I love seeing people grow.”