Former Liberty athletes Cameron Talley, Kelsey Werre and Kyle Noble have taken their talents from the field to the sidelines, continuing to carry the Liberty tradition off the field, as coaches and leaders of school sports programs.
Talley, a former varsity football captain and varsity baseball standout, and currently an Assistant C-Team Football Coach and Assistant Varsity Baseball Coach, has the opportunity to coach both sports he once thrived in.
“I felt like one of the luckiest guys in the world to come back,” Talley said. “It isn’t very common for people to be able to come back to a place where they got to grow not only intellectually but as a person.”
Werre, a former track and soccer star at Liberty, came back at first as a long term substitute teacher in early 2014, and then became a full time PE teacher, track and field coach, and soccer coach by the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year.
“At first I was nervous to coach soccer, but it has always been my dream job to coach track, and to coach sprints and be a jumps coach,” Werre said. “I love building relationships with the players. Being a coach lets me get to know my players much better.”
Noble, a former basketball, baseball, and football standout at Liberty, graduated in 1993, and has witnessed change of culture around the Liberty community.
“I would say there is a much greater ‘small town’ feel than there used to be,” Noble said. “The sense of community, amongst the general public, has definitely increased. As that relates to Liberty, the community identifies with Liberty as ‘their’ school.  The community has become more invested in the school as the school has become more invested in community.”
As former varsity athletes, these coaches compared their experiences as a player and athlete, citing the similarities and differences in preparation and the feel of game day.
“I thought it wouldn’t be as intense when I first started coaching, but I realized that this is just as intense if not more intense than playing at times,” Talley said. “As a coach it feels more like a chess match going into games…. But the transition really wasn’t that hard for me, as this was something that I always wanted to do.”
“In soccer I spend a lot more time on who to start, formation, substitutions, and pre game talks to my players.” Werre said.
At the end of the day, all three coaches came back for one reason: they are all still proud to be Patriots and wear the blue and green long after their time as students came to an end.
“At Liberty that mentality of ‘We Are One’ that started with the football program and grew into the entire school definitely impacted me in terms of knowing the idea of community, team work, and school pride,” Talley said.