Houston’s Becky Pendleton celebrates husband’s health, coaching daughter in volleyball,
Houston’s Pendleton celebrates husband’s health, coaching daughter
Houston’s Becky Pendleton is coming off the best year of her 18 as a high school coach.
She led the Mustangs volleyball team to the state championship game last fall for the first time in school history. And she did it coaching her daughter Lexi, the team’s setter, who was an all-region selection as a freshman.
The success was even sweeter because her husband, David, was healthy enough to see it. He battled cancer in his lymph nodes during the 2018 season.
It started when he noticed a lump on his neck and decided to get it examined. After an initial biopsy and a CAT scan doctors decided he needed surgery.
“I went into surgery with the expectation of coming out with like a one-inch scar on the side of my neck and he basically cut me from my voice box to the bottom of my ear,” David said. “Once they biopsied the material after surgery they found out it was cancer. It was Becky that actually told me what it was because I was in recovery when I found out.”
He later underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatments and lost 100 pounds in eight weeks while he was in the hospital. During that time, Becky kept coaching and the Houston volleyball community rallied around the family.
“It got really bad during volleyball season and I’m lucky to be in the program I’m in because I usually take care of everything, but that year they took care of me,” Becky said. “Anything I needed. I didn’t cook the whole season.
“It got really bad during volleyball season and I’m lucky to be in the program I’m in because I usually take care of everything, but that year they took care of me. Anything I needed. I didn’t cook the whole season. Being gone all the time coaching, at least there was food here for my kids. The school, everything, but my program, in particular, was so good to me.”
Becky Pendleton
Houston volleyball coach
Being gone all the time coaching, at least there was food here for my kids. The school, everything, but my program, in particular, was so good to me.”
It’s a program that she’s spent over two decades building. The former Germantown standout and Memphis volleyball player began her career coaching basketball at Houston Middle and eventually started the volleyball program there.
Since taking over as coach at Houston High, she has over 560 wins and has made 13 of the last 14 Class AAA state tournaments. And she still runs all the teams from sixth grade through 12th.
Balancing the roles of mom and coach
Normally around this time, Becky and Lexi would be spending their weekends together in Jackson, Mississippi, where Lexi plays for a travel team called Infinity Volleyball Academy. But the season got cut short due to COVID-19.
They typically leave after school on Fridays, stay with Becky’s sister and come back on Sundays.
“One thing that I love playing down there is that a lot of the girls don’t know that my mom is a coach,” Lexi said “They don’t know she’s coaching me on the court and at home. It’s different having different people around me that I enjoy it.”
When matches are done, Becky gives herself five minutes to critique her daughter and ask questions. After that, the topic of volleyball is off-limits. That’s how she balances the roles of coach and mom.
“Another coach gave me that advice and I try very hard to follow that even during tournaments,” Becky said. “The day of a tournament, I’ll talk to her a little bit, then it’s over and we don’t talk about it. Because I have to turn it off and turn into the mom role or else we’re just miserable at home.”
David said Lexi is even more competitive than her mother but that they’ve found a way to channel that energy in a positive way.
“(Having them on the same team) was probably one of the scariest propositions for me,” David said. “There’s the whole mother-daughter dynamic. But surprisingly they understand their role with one another. When Becky will tell her something its not ‘I know mom’, its ‘Yes ma’am.’ They do a very good job of separating that.”
Lexi, who was was an all-region and All-metro selection as a freshman last season, says she enjoys playing for her mom even if it does come with some added pressure.
“She has a personality that I can work well with,” Lexi said. “But you have to work 10 times harder to show everyone else that you earned it yourself and that it wasn’t given to you. Hearing different things from outside sources and going back to serve in the state championship game and having ‘coaches daughter’ chanted at you, that’s definitely the hardest thing.”
Lexi said that she’s aiming to play college volleyball and become a coach one day, just like her mom.
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Lexi said.
“I love being around people so I wanted to be a teacher and then a volleyball coach is something I’ve wanted to be as well. I want to come back and take my mom’s spot one day.”