No matter the career path Rebecca Bates took in her life, she wanted to be around golf.

The Mexico boys golf head coach will be around golf in fall, too, when she starts as the new girls golf head coach next year, as announced at the April 15 school board meeting. Bates has been the boys head coach for four years and is ready to also coach the girls.

Bates played four years in college with Truman State University in Kirksville before staying two years to coach as a graduate assistant while she earned her master’s degree in education.

“That’s when I fell in love with coaching,” Bates said. “I wasn’t the best college golfer. I fell into my role and found the passion for coaching golf.”

Bates said that “if money was no object” and that she didn’t need a job, she would be a golf coach or work in a golf shop to be around the sport every day. She has conveyed her passion while leading the boys program.

Along with being the girls physical education teacher at the middle school, Bates also served as the assistant middle school softball coach in the fall before having to step away since her fall season will be occupied with the girls golf program. While she prefers coaching golf, Bates said it was hard to give that up because she loved her students but will now be coaching another group of girls. Bates said she feels ready to coach the girls because she was accustomed to coaching girls before being hired at Mexico. 

“The emotions are very different,” Bates said. “I teach girls PE, so I know the girls better than I know the boys. I have a better relationship with the girls and have to be more intentional with the boys to connect with them and get them to trust me. Girls are more gentle and boys are a little more rougher and have to be kept in line.”

Bates said she has definitely settled into coaching boys after several years at the head of the boys golf program and will need to establish better relationships with the girls program. She said the previous head coach Layne Meyers put in “a lot of work, a lot of time and a lot of effort” into the program to the point it turned into “a family.” 

Other than Reagan Hays and Bentley McCarty that she’s had in class, Bates said she will meet new faces and hopes to have even more new faces. Bates said she wants to generate more interest in the girls golf program and “promote the game of golf in general,” which Meyers did well but Bates wants to take it further.

“It’s such a unique sport because it’s an individual sport but also a team sport,” Bates said. “Some of those students that don’t necessarily feel like they fit on the court for basketball, they don’t want to run or they don’t feel like they want to be in front of everybody batting, they get to go off and do their own thing but also be part of a team and family.”

Athletic director Brandon Schafer said Bates was a good fit because of her familiarity with Mexico athletics but also for “building a strong foundation of skill development, sportsmanship and competitive excellence” with the boys program.

“With her expertise and leadership, Coach Bates brings a consistent philosophy and proven approach to the girls golf program,” Schafer said. “Her dedication in helping student-athletes grow as golfers and young leaders makes her a great fit for the programs' next chapter.”

Bates said her ultimate goal is she wants to have good numbers out for the girls program and then help the interested girls improve. 

“The sport is dying in some towns,” Bates said. “Coach Meyers, she did a lot of hard work to get girls on the team and keep them on the team. It’s finding some way to help girls realize they can actually like something that they didn’t think they would like.”