Payton Bledsoe had the support of her players before applying to be the Battle boys volleyball head coach.

The Mexico native and alum had six years of volleyball coaching experience in club leagues and three years as an assistant with the Battle girls before being hired as the Battle boys coach, according to an announcement on Nov. 11. 

Bledsoe said the girls have open gyms in the summer and spring and some boys file into the gym at those times. She said those boys encouraged Bledsoe to apply for the position.

“It was a really cool coaching moment when athletes are asking you to be their coach,” Bledsoe said. “I’ve coached boys before in club and really enjoyed it so I think coaching at high school level will also be really fun.”

Bledsoe is involved with club volleyball in Columbia, currently coaching a 14U boys team and has experience coaching boys and girls from 13-18. She said she has coached about a handful of her upcoming boys in the spring.

Boys volleyball became an officially sanctioned sport by MSHSAA in 2024. Columbia Public Schools added Battle’s, Hickman’s and Rock Bridge’s names to the 16 districts of five or six schools each to the inaugural season a year ago because the interest was there. Bledsoe said the volleyball in Columbia is strong.

“I feel like more and more, because it’s becoming more known, that there has been more interest in both club and high school,” Bledsoe said. “I currently coach a 14U boys team for the club, and this is the first year they’ve had that because they had enough interest at a younger age that we created a team.”

After some boys played their first year of volleyball last year, Bledsoe said some boys decided to gain more experience in club. Nationally, the amount of boys participating in high school volleyball nearly doubled from 20 years ago to more than 85,000 last year, according to statistics shared by the National Federation of State High School Associations. 

Going into their second years, Bledsoe said what she hopes they gain from the upcoming season matches her coaching philosophy regardless of the age. She said it translates to life after volleyball because so many don’t go on to play in college let alone professionally.

“The biggest thing I hope that they learn is to be confident,” Bledsoe said. “Just know that they are capable and they are strong. All of them are going to young adults some day who start a new job or go somewhere new.”

Bledsoe went on to play at Westminster College in Fulton after taking the court for the Mexico Lady Bulldogs. From her experience, she said she put too much pressure on herself and didn’t enjoy the game like she does now as a coach. 

Based on what she knows about her roster now, Bledsoe said she can tell they all joined because they enjoy volleyball. Battle even has a boy from Father Tolton in a cooperative sponsorship capacity, which is when two schools enter a partnership to allow one school without enough for a team to join the other school’s team, because he was eager to play volleyball.

“One thing I am so excited about that they have compared to other teams I have coached is their eagerness and drive,” Bledsoe said. “So many of them are also so open-minded, and they just want to play volleyball. They don’t care what they’re doing or what it entails, they want to work hard and have fun.”

Bledsoe joked that the Battle boys and girls could learn from playing each other. She said the boys had the confidence and aggressiveness the girls needed while the girls were better with finesse and mechanics because she said the boys “want to hit the ball as hard as they can.” 

The Battle boys finished with a record of 8-17-2 last year while playing a schedule full of big schools and with nine teams who finished with at least 20 wins. Bledsoe said boys volleyball has been popular in St. Louis and Kansas City longer than Columbia so her players have faced and will continue to face teams with greater experience and depth. She said becoming a better athlete starts with playing better athletes.

“I want them to feel like they’re improving,” Bledsoe said. “I’m a firm believer in that there are bad wins and good losses. Even if we didn’t come out with a win, I want that to be a good loss in terms of the boys went out there, they played hard, they communicated and they gave it their all.”