Enterprise hires New Brockton volleyball coach Jennifer Graham

Last December, longtime Enterprise volleyball coach Janie Wiggins resigned as head coach and on Tuesday, Feb. 25, EHS officially hired New Brockton volleyball coach Jennifer Graham to serve as her replacement.

Graham has served as New Brockton volleyball coach in two separate stints at the school from 2013 until 2016 and then again from 2018 through the 2019 season.

In those six seasons at the helm, New Brockton won four area championships and made three Elite 8 appearances.

Graham left New Brockton after the 2016 season when her husband, Floyd Graham, was named head football coach at a school in Florida. Grantham continued to coach volleyball there, as well.

Before originally coming to New Brockton, Graham – who played college volleyball at Central Michigan – coached at Buckhorn High School in Huntsville and Steinbrenner High School in Florida.

In 2018, she returned to the Wiregrass as Graham’s husband took over as an assistant coach at Carroll and Jennifer Graham returned to New Brockton.

“The community is just awesome in New Brockton,” Graham said. “Being a small school has so many positive things. The parents are highly involved and the administrators I’ve had over the years have been great supporters of athletics.

“So, it’s nice to be a coach in a school where that support system is there.”

She said that her decision to leave New Brockton to take the position less than 10 miles away at EHS was one she felt she needed to make professionally.

“It involved a lot of soul searching,” she said. “Professionally, I really want to challenge myself. It’s been a few years since I’ve been at a large school and I’m ready for that level of play again and to challenge myself as a coach.

“Ultimately, my goal is to take Enterprise even further than they’ve already gone. It’s already a great program and the coaches have worked tirelessly to get it to where it is now and I feel honored to continue that.”

Wiggins compiled a 631-249 record with six Elite 8 appearances. Graham and Wiggins have coached against each other and also gotten to know each other since coaching together with the Deep South Volleyball Club recently.

“I’ve known her since she was at Kinston,” Graham said. “I got to know her that way and through the coaching club at Deep South, I got to know her more there. She’s a great person and a great leader and just a good person to be around.”

Graham said she fully understands that she has big shoes to fill but that’s part of the fun of the EHS job.

“For all of these years – 15 years or more – I’ve been building programs almost from scratch or rebuilding a program that’s been neglected,” Graham said. “I’ve enjoyed that process of taking something and building it but this is a different goal, though. There is already something great in Enterprise.

“They’re already competing in the state tournament and the goal will be to get past where they’ve gone before; to go further. That’s one of the things we’re going to push for and talk about as we set our team goals. I have to get them to believe they can do it and it’s going to happen. I’m really excited and gracious to follow such a great leader like Coach Wiggins.”

While Graham will be taking on new challenges in Enterprise, she said that she’s also excited to watch the continued growth at soon-to-be Class 3A New Brockton.

“With New Brockton growing so much and moving up in classification it’s just going to get even better and more competitive there,” she said. “There are new sports now, too, so it’s an exciting, changing time and I will certainly miss that. The coaches that are (there) are really excited about all the changes going on.”