Rhodes College Athletics

Kait Harris enters the 2018 season in her sixth year as head coach of the Lynx volleyball program. 

The Lynx have gradually become better under Harris' direction as the 2016 squad's .500 won/loss percentage was the best in the program since 2007. During the 2016 campaign, five Lynx were named All-SAA as the team finished fourth in conference.

In her first year, she led the Lynx to a 6-8 record in the SAA Conference and 10-21 overall record. In the past two years she has added six players to the SAA All-Conference Teams. In 2013, eight players achieved status on the SAA Academic Honor Roll and six in 2014. Harris has brought in seventeen new players to the Lynx volleyball program during her first two years. 

Previous to Rhodes, Harris served as an assistant volleyball coach at Saginaw Valley State University (MI) for three years (2010-2013). Her duties included practice preparations, match preparations, in-game scouting, recruiting, and video review. She worked specifically with setters, and was included in team decisions. As a coach for Cardinals she aided seven players in earning All-GLIAC (Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference) honors, one GLIAC tournament appearance, and an NCAA tournament appearance in 2011.

While in a Cardinals uniform, Harris was named the GLIAC Player of the Year in 2009, received All-American Honorable-Mention Honors, was a GLIAC Commissioner’s Award Recipient, and named Saginaw Valley’s 2009 Female Athlete of the Year. At SVSU, in 2008, she led her team to the program’s first-ever GLIAC Championship Title along with making it to the Regional Finals in the NCAA Tournament while ranked No. 24 in the country. In 2009, the team was again selected into the NCAA Tournament.

At Rhodes, she looks forward to continuing to grow the volleyball program. She enjoys being able to work with driven student-athletes that not only have high goals and expectations for themselves on the volleyball court, but in the classroom and in turn creates a healthy competitive environment in our gym. “Our program goals are set high, not just because we, coaches, want to succeed, but because our players are motivated young women who want achieve greatness during their four years at Rhodes and continue to do so in whatever they choose to do later in life. We have been able to attract unique student-athletes who all play vital roles in the overall success of the team. Each year “success” may mean something different in our program, but I believe if we continue to get better every day we can make our goals realities. I have to give credit to the local Memphis Grizzlies in saying we must possess a lot of grit as a team and be able to find joy in the daily grind.”

Coach Harris resides in mid-town with her husband Jeff Cleanthes (Rhodes Head Baseball Coach and Head Athletic Director). They enjoy playing tennis together, watching the Yankees (or Tigers), and spending time with their two dogs Dexter and Mo. Harris is originally from Bay City, Mich. and graduated from Saginaw Valley with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Printmaking and a Biology minor.