Student-Athlete Of The Month: Courtlynn Edwards

Courtlynn Edwards likes to do new things.

During the COVID shutdown, she took up drawing. At Severna Park High School, she’s helped lead the charge for a Black Student Union chapter. And on the court, the senior middle blocker is standing out as a team leader on a volleyball team led by a new voice for the first time in years.

And she takes all that responsibility in stride.

“Last year, we had five graduating seniors that had a really big impact on the team dynamic and how it flowed as a whole,” Edwards said. Coming into this year, me and the other senior Maeve Byrne decided we needed to step up and be the role model because our team is so young. To be a presence on and off the court, being so young and a leader is really exciting.”

Edwards has stepped into that role nicely, anchoring the Falcons’ middle of the formation and helping the team to a first-round bye in the regional playoffs. But the experiences and confidence she’s gained through volleyball are as great a reward as the accomplishments themselves.

Last season, she got to play for coach Tim Dunbar, who also coached her mother when she played at Severna Park. Then new coach Caitlin Mills came in, first as an assistant and now as the head coach, bringing along Edwards’ JV coach as an assistant.

“Everything’s coming full circle with the experience at Severna Park volleyball,” she said.

But more importantly, she has learned more about herself and what matters to her. When there wasn’t anything to do during the COVID shutdown, Edwards drew, and she discovered she really liked it.

“There’s a whole bunch of drawings in my room that are just for me, that are up on the wall in my room,” she said. “Now it’s always school, come home, take a nap, get up, go to practice, eat, come home. I still doodle here and there when I have the time, because I do like to draw.”

Beyond all the AP classes — Edwards has taken six in her time at Severna Park — and the other honors like the Science National Honor Society, getting a chapter of the Black Student Union on campus was something Edwards felt was important not only for herself and her community, but for the school at large.

“It’s really about coming together and talking about our experiences in Severna Park, because a lot of the people who have been here and are Black have been here all of our lives,” Edwards said of the group she and friend Dashiya Powell sought to help form. “And we’re still learning about our own history; there are many things that we didn’t know.”

With the leadership in BSU, in volleyball, in the school’s athletic leadership council, and other initiatives, it’s no wonder that Edwards is constantly on the go. But she’s got her eyes on a career in forensic science, and she knows that keeping things tight on the academic front is the most important thing she can do right now. She currently has a 3.9 GPA.

“My mom has always drilled into my head that I’m a student-athlete, not an athlete-student, even though I want to think that sometimes,” said Edwards, who plans to attend Fayetteville State University in North Carolina and hopes to play volleyball there as well. “You have to be very technical (for forensic science), so I’m trying to get ready for that.”