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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

HELENA – When August arrives, there will be a new face on the bench for the Helena Huskies as they look to return to the postseason.

Helena named Destinee Briskey as its new head volleyball coach in a social media announcement on Friday, Feb. 21. The announcement came after Briskey was approved by the Shelby County Board of Education at a regularly-scheduled meeting on Thursday, Feb. 20.

“I’m very, very excited,” Briskey said of joining Helena. “I moved around a bit the last few years, so I’m hoping that this will be home. I know this will be home, and I’m just excited to get to work with the girls. They had really good teams the last few years, so I’m just looking forward to continue building on that.”

Briskey has indeed moved around a lot in recent years. Most recently, she served as the head coach at Pell City during the 2024 season. The Panthers had a 27-23 record and finished runner-up in their area before losing in the first round of regionals to Southside-Gadsden.

Before then, Briskey had her first head coaching job at Munford from 2021 to 2023. The Tigers reached the second round in Class 4A regionals in all three seasons and won area championships in 2022 and 2023.

Briskey was also named the Talledega County Coach of the Year in 2022 and to the AVCA 30 Under 30 list in 2023 while at Munford.

She coached middle school volleyball prior to that, making stops at The Donoho School, Oxford Middle School and Decatur Middle School. She coached at Donoho while studying in college and was an assistant coach when the Falcons reached the 1A title game in 2015 and Final Four in 2016.

As a player, she played college volleyball at LaGrange for a year after earning All-Calhoun County honors across three sports at Saks.

While she has called many schools home during her life, she says Helena’s dedication to pursuing excellence makes it an attractive place to settle down and lay down roots for her family.

“What drew me to Helena the most is their mission statement, and it talks a lot about just excellence, and I really value I’m striving for excellence, and it’s in all things, not just sports,” Briskey said. “Of course, I care about volleyball, but just academics, community, all the things, and so that’s really important to me as a coach is that my athletes are well-rounded, so I feel like it’s a great fit because they care about students and athletes in all aspects of their lives.”

Over the course of her career, she has learned that high expectations and adversity breed excellence, so she plans to utilize those lessons to build the Huskies into a perennial playoff team.

“You can expect high standards, you can expect competitiveness, passion for the game, and even if we are down, we’re never out so I really believe in anything that you do, you do with passion and you never give up,” Briskey said. “I preach a lot about adversity, and that is one thing I would say that I bring for sure is handling adversity and teaching kids how to take adversity and move forward.”

Briskey replaces Amanda Livingston, who coached Helena for two seasons in 2023 and 2024 after arriving from Tuscaloosa County.

The Huskies went a combined 35-26 over the course of her tenure but missed the playoffs both seasons as they went a combined 3-9 in area play against a tough schedule.

Briskey will teach math at Helena High School and begin at the school in early March as she prepares the Huskies over the offseason for the start of the 2025 campaign.