CUH Women’s Basketball Welcomes New Head Coach

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Kevin Hashiro

Edwards joins the Chaminade Ohana as the new women’s basketball coach.

Last year, at this time, Michael Edwards was coaching high school girls basketball in Arizona.

Now at Chaminade, after being hired in June, Edwards is running practice just the same as he was in high school with just a bit more intensity.

“I’m not doing anything different at this collegiate level, the [Division II] level, that I was when I was coaching high school basketball,” Edwards said. “The only major difference is recruiting since you can’t recruit in high school.”

Edwards said that he likes to keep his practices moving so that his players can get the most out of the limited amounts of time they have. During the preseason, the team was allotted eight hours of practice with two days off. Once they reached Oct. 15, the team jumped to practicing 20 hours a week with a mandatory day off, per the NCAA. 

Edwards is the fifth head coach in Chaminade history. He is taking over a team that went 1-19 last season under coach Arthur King, who is now an assistant coach with the men’s basketball team. The Lady Silverswords are set to take on their first opponent under Edwards when they play Simon Fraser on Friday at 1 p.m. in McCabe Gymnasium. 

Edwards comes to Chaminade with much success at the high school level. During his two years at Flowing Wells High School in Tucson, Arizona, Edwards helped his team reach two championship games while compiling a 44-6 record. During his time at Flowing Wells, he served as the associate head coach. 

Before his time with the Caballeros, Edwards served as the head coach for five years for the women’s team at Tanque Verde High School and also saw much success. There he put together a 109-40 record while qualifying for the state playoffs each year. 

Edwards also happens to have a former player on Chaminade’s basketball team, junior guard Emma Morris, which is one of the ways that he knew about CUH.  

“A big part of what he did in high school is that he really cares about the experience that we have,” Morris said. “So even now, we’re working really hard and he’s pushing us really hard, but he also really cares about us having fun and team bonding. I’m excited to be competitive but he’s bringing back the passion and love for the game for a lot of us.”

Morris also highlighted the fact that she finds the opportunity to play under her high school coach again in college as “really special” since many people can’t say they’ve done that.

Morris also commented on Edwards’ coaching style becoming more upbeat but still remaining similar to what she experienced in high school. 

“He likes to have practice going and somebody doing something the entire time,” assistant coach Hilary Arakaki said. “I like that it’s a reflection of what you’ll see in the game. We want to teach them to build habitual practices and being able to transfer from one thing to another. Similar to how a game might run. It’s definitely up-tempo and it’s definitely keeping people involved, never a downtime. And if you’re on the court you’re moving. Which I think for our players sets a tone and gets everyone involved which allows the team to support each other.” 

The new head coach does realize that the jump between high school and college is big but also emphasized the fact that it’s not the job but instead the person who is coming into the job and how they execute it. 

Before his time as a basketball coach, Coach Edwards was at Wheeler Army Airfield in the Wahiawa district as a Chief Warrant Officer and a Chinook helicopter instructor pilot, making his new position at Chaminade a return to Oahu. 

After being honorably discharged in 2008, Edwards headed back to school and earned his MBA and Juris Doctor degrees at Texas Tech University.