Kayla Ard joined the Dayton women's basketball staff in July of 2015 and will be in her second season as a Flyer. Ard serves as assistant coach and recruiting coordinator.
As the recruiting coordinator Ard as managed to bring in a class ranked in the top 20 (2015). Part of that class was last years A-10 Rookie of the Year Lauren Cannatelli. Ard followed that up by bringing in two top 70 recruits for this season. Ard already has one top 100 recruit committed in the 2017 class.
Ard spent the previous two seasons at Clemson and has also made stops at Troy and Pensacola State.
Ard was a standout recruiter and assistant coach at Pensacola State College (Fla.) during the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons. The Pirates went to two National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) National Semifinals in her two seasons at the program.
As recruiting coordinator at PSC, Ard signed three WBCA All-Americans, and coached the players to 13 All-Conference honors. Her players moved on to earn scholarships in the Big East, SEC, Pac-12, and Colonial Athletic Conference.
She worked at Troy under Chanda Rigby, whom she followed from Pensacola State before the 2012-13 season. She,was instrumental in putting together Troy's eight-member 2013 signing class, which included three NJCAA All-Americans. Ard played for Rigby at Loranger (LA) high school, where she averaged 26.0 points per game, and led the team to a state title in 2000.
Ard has a great deal of coaching experience, including stops at AAU programs.
After attending Chipola Junior College for one year, Ard graduated from Southeastern Louisiana University in 2010, and earned her Master's degree in psychology from the University of Phoenix in 2013.
