62. Rebroadcast: Vaughn Kimball and Being a Volunteer Coach for Kids Sports Teams

Vaughn Kimball is my older brother…but he’s also had a lot of experience working with youth through work and also a variety of volunteer roles and opportunities. For this episode I asked him if he could talk about being a volunteer coach for kids sports teams. He shares a lot of good advice and encouragement for anyone that’s ever thought about wanting to be a coach for their kid’s teams. I also love the ‘why’ he shares at the end. That yes, it’s fun competing and learning a new sport, but most of all he has cherished the opportunities to really connect with kids, help build their confidence and self-esteem, and let them know that they have the capacity to learn anything and do good in the world. This episode originally dropped on May 9, 2023…and I wanted to share it again because I know there are many good coaches out there (and potential good coaches too!) who are making a difference for kids in many ways.

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Transcript

Melissa: Vaughn Kimball is my older brother, but he's also had a lot of experience working with you through work and also a variety of volunteer roles and opportunities. For this episode, I asked him if he could talk about being a volunteer coach for kids sports teams. He shares a lot of good advice and encouragement for anyone that's ever thought about wanting to be a coach for their kids teams. I also love the why he shares at the end that yes, it's fun competing and learning a new sport, but most of all, he has cherished the opportunities to really connect with kids, help build their confidence and self esteem, and let them know that they have the capacity to learn anything and do good in the world. This episode originally dropped on May 9, 2023, and I wanted to share it again because I know there are many good coaches out there and potential good coaches, too, who are making a difference for kids in many ways. Welcome to the Do Something more podcast, a service oriented show where we highlight the helpers who inspire us all to do something more. I'm your host, Melissa Drapery. Thank you so much for being here.

Melissa: All right, welcome to another episode of the Do Something more podcast. And today I'm really excited about the interview I'm doing because it is one of my siblings, and more specifically one of my older brothers, has agreed to let me interview him and come on the show. So it's my brother, Vaughn. And, Vaughn, thanks so much for being willing to come on the show today.

Vaughn: Yeah, I'm excited. Thank you for having me.

Melissa: I look up to my brother Vaughn, and there's a lot of things I could probably use a podcast episode to talk to you about, but I wanted to do today's episode on parents who volunteer to coach their kids sports teams because there's a lot of awesome parents out there that do that with their kids for the love of the sports and the love of their kids as well. So that's what we're going to be kind of delving into today. But first, Vaughn, do you want to just give us a little intro and a little background to introduce yourself?

Vaughn: Okay, great. So I'm a dad of six kids. My wife, Tavi, and I have been married for 23 years. We live in Caldwell, Idaho. I work for Idaho power company as an archaeologist for their environmental compliance department. We've been here for a little over 15 years. I guess maybe some of my background that's pertinent to the topic of this interview is kind of how I got into coaching. Before I started my career in archaeology, I actually was a middle school slash junior high school science teacher, and I coached the boys track team for two years while I was a teacher. And I would say that was actually probably my introduction. That's where I found how much I enjoyed working with kids and coaching kids, you know, and just the relationships that you build and the kind of positive impact you can have in a coaching environment. So, like I say, I taught school for two years, and then when I got the job I have now with the power company, we moved to Idaho.

Melissa: Yeah, I love that. I have a teenager doing track myself right now, and I know how much of an impact those good coaches can have on the kids, not just for the sport, but on just who they are and what they're doing in life in general. So I love that. So how did you then transition that to working with your own kids and the different things that they were interested in?

Vaughn: So I would say, as a parent, I always kind of had the mindset that I wanted my kids to explore their own talents and find what they enjoyed. I feel like there's other kinds of good life lessons you learn from learning how to cooperate with somebody and strategize with people and implement and use those things in stressful situations. And so we always kind of encouraged our kids to try something. It never really mattered to me what it was, but we always kind of encouraged them to try something. So I guess as the parent, when my own kids started getting old enough that you sign them up for community sports teams and things like that, you know, I realized that, you know, if I wanted them to do it, it would help if I showed a good attitude and an interest in, in participating in it as well. So part of the reason I brought up the school experience, and I hope, I don't know, maybe this is the right place to share this, is. Having had that experience coaching at a junior high school, it helped my confidence. It helped me feel more confident about my ability to, to work with a group of kids because I had done it before and granted my own kids, you know, we're talking about like seven and eight year olds as opposed to 15 year olds, but it still helped my confidence. And as I thought about it, I realized part of that was people that I had worked with when I first coached at the junior high school level. I don't know, I guess maybe this is an interesting or entertaining enough story. I'll share it. But when I interviewed for that job, it was a mid year hire, and those don't. I had just barely finished my teaching certification. It was a mid year higher, so I knew that there wouldn't be a lot of full time positions open. And when I interviewed for it, it went well, and they seemed to like me and I liked the school. And then the principal, at the very end of the interview, he said, I see on your resume that you ran cross country in high school. Would you be willing to coach our boys track team if we hired you? And my first thought was, buddy, there's not a lot of things I wouldn't be willing to do just to get a full time job with benefits. But I also knew that some of the people who I would be interviewing for the same job probably wouldn't be interested in coaching the track team. I knew it was an edge, so I agreed to do it. I was really fortunate because the girls track coach at that same school had a lot of experience coaching. So she shared with me some of the things she had learned, and she gave me a lot of source materials that brought me up to speed. And so I think that helped. I helped. I think that helped my experience a lot. So in terms of maybe a piece of advice I would give to people who are thinking about this is, you know, if you haven't done it before, at the very least talk to somebody who has get some perspective about what it's going to be like. Because coaching kids, you know, if you haven't done it before, there's going to be things that, that will be new to you or might surprise you. You know, it's easy to forget what eight year olds or seven year olds or even five year olds, I guess, depending on what you're, what you're doing. You know, we forget what they're like in different situations. And, and so it's helpful to get a little bit of input and advice from somebody else. And if you can be an assistant, if you can assist somebody else before. Before you put yourself in the. I'm going to be the lead role. Even better. I mean, I think a person could jump in and do it and probably do fine, but it's helpful to have an experienced mentor, even as, even in something that you might see as being as simple or easy or basic as coaching little kids. It's helpful to have a mentor. It's helpful to have somebody who's, who's been there before and can give you good advice.

Melissa: Yeah, I love that. I think that's great advice. And I think it's normal for, like you said, if you've never done anything or worked with a group of kids in that way before, it's normal to kind of be a little hesitant of how you're going to do it. And as a mother, I always get advice for what stage I'm at for my kids. So it makes sense that anyone else working with children or our kids in that way to find good people they can go to for advice and direction. So I love that. So what, what sports, just to, for curiosity's sake, what sports have you coached besides the junior high track with your kids?

Vaughn: So with my own kids, it's been mostly basketball and just, you know, the community type leagues that a lot of smaller or mid sized communities have.

Melissa: Mm hmm. That's great. Basketball is a fun sport. So I know you talk about talking to someone. I know, for me, the only coaching experience I've had is I've done little four and five year old boys and soccer, and that just mostly felt like herding kittens a little bit and keeping little boys contained. But when you're working with little kids, how do you move beyond just trying to keep everyone contained and moving in the same direction and paying attention to actually trying to teach them some fundamentals of the game?

Vaughn: Yeah. So I've done basketball, and then I was going to throw in there. I've done flag football, too.

Melissa: Oh, that's a good one.

Vaughn: And there's. Yeah, they're a lot like what you described, you know, with soccer, I think the best advice I could give to somebody is to, is if you can find another parent, don't be afraid to. In my experience, there's people out there who are willing to help, but they don't step forward because they don't have the experience. If they sense that they have somebody in you that's willing to give them some guidance and allow them to participate, there's lots of people who are willing to, and you can't. If you get even just one more parent to help, you've just doubled the amount of coaching time that kids get. You know, especially you're talking about five year olds in a soccer field or my earliest youngest groups. I probably were like seven or eight year olds on basketball courts. You know, those kids don't have a lot of, you know, they, they need to just practice the basic mechanics of dribbling a basketball.

Melissa: Right. Just the fundamentals.

Vaughn: Right. Or dribbling a soccer ball and have it not, have them not kick it too hard and get to get away from them. But they just need, they need time with those mechanics. And if you can get another person who can run, you know, another drill at the other end of the field or at the other end of the court. You've just doubled the amount of time those kids get working and doing, and it's a lot easier for them to not get distracted because they've got something to do. You can't expect kids that young to wait in line for their turn, right, to dribble. They're not going to. It's just not going to work. The other thing, I learned this from watching a more experienced basketball coach that volunteered for one of my kids teams during a season that I was, I felt like I was too busy to be the coach. And I would go and observe his practices and he came up with a lot of games that were based in the fundamentals and that the kids enjoyed playing. And while they were playing those games, they were dribbling, they were passing, they were shooting. You know, there's a lot you can, nowadays, you can find a lot of this kind of, these kind of ideas on YouTube and wherever else, but that's the, you know, that's the. Those are probably the two best piece of advice I could give. Find another trusted adult that can participate and you double the amount of time the kids get working on a drill and find games that they can play that incorporate those basic mechanics that they still need to learn and incorporate some of the principles, especially as it comes, as it pertains to, like, team sports where, you know, they've got teammates that they're setting screens for making passes to figure out games that, that allow them to practice those kind of skills.

Melissa: Yeah, that, that's great advice. That is something that helped me, working with those little five year old boys. So any drill that you could turn into a game that they understood was, was great. So what are some of the, do you have any stories or experiences that come to mind or some of the good things that you've experienced that have just really made you appreciative that you were there, being able to coach and be part of one of your kids teams.

Vaughn: Maybe I'll just share one experience.

Melissa: Yeah, go ahead. Love to hear.

Vaughn: It was probably about fifth grade boys. The age group, I think were fifth graders, maybe fifth and 6th graders. And it was just a little, you know, community basketball league. We had worked with them. I had another friend of mine that I know really well. One of his boys was on the team and he helped. He had helped me all season. Let me throw one other thing in there about having an extra helper. The other thing an extra helper can do, especially if your mind in a, in a game is focused on, on coaching and helping the kids you know, effectively execute if you've taught them an offense or effectively play defense and you want to coach them as the game goes.

Melissa: Right.

Vaughn: I mean, you see all kinds of people out there, right? You see people who are yelling at kids and you can see that the kids are getting discouraged, and you obviously don't want to do that. But there's nothing wrong with positive coaching in the moment. They don't. There's no. There's no place they can learn better than in the pressure of the moment, of the game. As long as the coach, you know, as long as you do it in a way that doesn't overwhelm them. That's kind of the best kind of learning environment there is. The one of the things I always had my extra helper do for me was make sure that everybody got playing time. It's always super helpful to me, too, because they can make sure that kids get playing time while I. While I coach. And so that's another plug for having an extra helper. So back to the experience. It was fifth or 6th grade boys. It was the. For our community, that's the youngest age where they actually would do a tournament. Kids in a. Kids younger than that, they just play through a season. Some of them, they don't even keep score. They just have a good time playing the sport. But this age group was the first. They were just barely old enough to have a tournament kind of experience, and they were a pretty good little basketball team. They learned to work well. We didn't have any super talented athletes, but they had learned to work well together. And they. They had won most of their games, and they had. We actually had a pretty. Pretty high seed for the tournament. But one of our, one of the kids who played point guard for us, I don't remember what the conflict was, but there was a family conflict, and he wasn't able to be there that day. But I thought, you know, especially the first game of the tournament, I thought we'd be okay. I thought we'd still be pretty competitive. And we went out there and they blew us out in the first half. It was. It was ugly. I mean, it was. It was one of those. They doubled our score, you know, by the end of the first half, it was like 20 something to twelve or something, or actually, it was probably worse than that. They blew us out, and my kids were pretty discouraged, and, and you. You could see that it was. A lot of it was psychological, like, it was just the nerves, never having been in a tournament before. And I. We kind of huddled up at halftime and I just basically said to him, you guys, you're a good basketball team. I know you're a good basketball team. I don't care about the scoreboard. Stop looking at the scoreboard. Let's just go play basketball and take it one possession at a time, one defensive stand at a time and just do what we've learned how to do this year. Oh, that's another thing I remember. We are. My point guard couldn't be there that day. And then we had a little kid, we ran a one three, one kind of half court press defense, and one of my quickest kids who was, he usually played the position that steals the pass. He got three fouls really quickly and I had to pull him out of the game. That kind of hurt us, too. So you could see that. Anyway, at halftime they were really discouraged and I just said, guys, you're a good basketball team. We've had a good season. We've had fun together. Let's not, let's not forget all of that. Just, you don't look at the scoreboard anymore. Just, just go out there and play basketball. And they did. And in the second half, we were much more competitive. We didn't win the game, but you could see it in their body language. And by the end, they had a good time and they, you know, they, you know, the discouraged, they were disappointed, obviously, at not winning the game, but. Yeah, but it didn't end. It didn't end as a massively negative experience. And they went out there and competed.

Melissa: Right.

Vaughn: They were able to compete and they knew that they were competitive even if the scoreboard didn't show a win at the end. And, and in the end, I think that's, I have always said that in sports, you know, they say winning isn't everything, and that is absolutely true. It's not. But a lot of the lessons that you learn, you learn from wanting to compete, figuring out how to compete.

Melissa: How can I matter to some extent?

Vaughn: Yes. Yes. Right. How can I compete? How can I get better at this than I was last time, even if, whether I actually win or not? So I felt like that was a really positive experience. They didn't go away feeling like, oh, well, we aren't any good. They felt good about themselves. And I think that, I think that there's important lessons in that, too. The scoreboard doesn't always matter. I mean, it's going to matter a little bit if, you know, if you're out there playing the sport and the kids, you know, it's funny because some of those age groups, they don't even have scoreboards. But by the end of the game, the kids all know what the score is because they. So obviously. Yeah, so obviously it matters to them, but it isn't the most important thing. Some of the most important lessons you learn, you learn because, because you are trying to get better and you do want to be competitive. But in the end, in the end, it's that kind of character building experience. Hey, this is really hard and it didn't turn out the way I hoped, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give up. I'm going to keep trying.

Melissa: Yeah, there's definitely life lessons to be learned there to keep. Keep pushing forward and going forward even when it's not working out how you had hoped it would.

Vaughn: Yeah.

Melissa: And I loved what you spoke about earlier about as a coach that you should be taking advantage of those moments to teach. And I know I've seen with my own kids, those are the moments they remember when, when a coach or someone is teaching them in that moment and then it clicks and they make that basket or score that goal or it works for them. And just the look on their face, I mean, those are the moments that kids remember when they, when something that they've been working on are learning clicks in a game because of good direction from a coach. So, yeah, I think all of those things come into play and are great when we're trying to help and work with our kids. Those are some great stories and experiences. Have you had any big challenges that you've had to work through when you've been volunteering in this way with, with your kids teams?

Vaughn: Yeah, probably one of the hardest challenges I've experienced was having kids that, I don't know a better way to say it, but they're just, they're kind of hard, and I don't mean hard, they're hardened. Like life has hardened them. Like you're, like you're trying to work with an eleven or a twelve year old and there's kind of a hard shell and, you know, and you can see that. You can just see that they're having a harder time building good relationships or making connections on the team or, you know, I've seen bullying. I've seen kids, you know, that bully and when you're trying to build a team spirit that's, you know, that can be a mess.

Melissa: Right.

Vaughn: If you have a kid who has, who seems to want to have a, you know, a tendency or a behavior where they start trying to bully other people on your own team, you know, that can poison it for everybody. A lot of dealing with that is kind of a case by case basis. It hasn't happened to me a lot. It hasn't happened to me a lot. I'll tell you, you know, I've seen it. I've seen that tendency on a girls team. I've seen that tendency on a boys team. Both basketball teams that I coached, I've seen. I mean, I remember one of the flag football games, the kids coming off the field and telling me that somebody on the other team was biting them.

Melissa: Oh, my goodness.

Vaughn: So. So I've seen it. I've seen it. You know, you see it all. I would say all age groups and all genders, you're gonna. There's a likelihood that you're gonna see that. And for me, the most important way around that is to try and build a relationship. And depending on how hardened a child is from their life experiences, you may or may not be able to do that in the course of a short season. You have to act on the bullying, but you also have to try to build relationships all the way around. I don't know. I've had times where I don't. I worked with it all season long. I want to say all season. They're short little seasons. You know, it's just a rec league type thing, but. And didn't feel like I made as much progress I wanted to. And then there's other times where you noticed it in the beginning and worked with it, and it got really good, but as, just as a human being, you still worry about those. Those little kids after you stop coaching them.

Melissa: Right, right.

Vaughn: Because, you know. Because you don't know what. You don't know what in their life made them that way and whether or not they are able to resolve it. There's only so much you can do right, in that amount of time that.

Melissa: You feel that desire to help them in the small amount they're there with you. So.

Vaughn: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Melissa: There's definitely those opportunities to be just a safe, good place for kids to land, too. As a coach, as well, I'm sure many people could share coaches they've had that have been that for them.

Vaughn: Yeah. And not to, you know, I guess I'll just say this, too. So the community that I have worked with that I had to sit through some training on how to recognize abuse in order to be a coach in that community.

Melissa: Oh, wow.

Vaughn: And I think that's really helpful, too. I used to work with the scouting program, and they're, you know the training that they would do. Adults need to. I've sat through more than one type of training, okay? I've done the scouting programs training. I did this communities training. I've sat through the. Been a volunteer for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints and sat through their training, and they're all good. The thing that always strikes me is that if you are an adult who's been through that training, if you're not willing to speak up when you see people who are not being consistent with the behaviors you observed or that you were taught about in those trainings, the trainings won't work. So do you understand what I'm. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Things like, no one on one with kids, things like always having two adults. If everybody, if the responsible adults aren't willing to speak up when they see other adults not following those rules, then the training isn't effective anymore. Right. We're not able to protect kids. I don't necessarily want to take this to a dark place, but, but that happens, too. There are, unfortunately, adults who do coaching and find themselves with relationships of trust with young people who then abuse those relationships. And so I think it's incumbent upon the rest of us to. To be willing to take those kinds of trainings and be willing to say something when we see behaviors that don't line up.

Melissa: Right? Yeah. Thanks so much for mentioning that. As I do think it's important for any way that you're going to choose to work with or volunteer with children to remember that you, when you are in that position, you are serving as an advocate for them as well. And that we need to make sure we're doing those things as adults that we. We should be doing. And I love that, that you say, if we don't see it in other adults to be brave, to speak up and say something because there's a reason they give us those, that training and direction and how great that your community offered that for those that were choosing to coach. I think that is awesome as well. Well, thank you so much. So I just. Any other advice, that encouragement that you want to give or just the biggest why that you found from, from being a coach and from those experiences?

Vaughn: Yeah, I did want to say something about the why question. You know, I told that story at the beginning about being hired at the junior high school and the why there was to get a job at first.

Melissa: Yeah.

Vaughn: Yeah. It was to get a job and with my own kids. The why there was to show a good example, you know, have a good, you know, just kind of a willingness to try new things kind of attitude.

Melissa: Right.

Vaughn: Felt like if my kids saw that in me, they'd be more willing to go out and try as well. What I have discovered over time that my why now is more like what you. I feel like you talked about a little bit earlier, that you realize that you're with these kids for a short amount of time, but if you. If you do your job right, you can have a positive impact. And those moments when they. I actually, this last month, I've been volunteering as a referee for a church run basketball league for, for young teenage kids that. That maybe wouldn't otherwise get a chance to play in an organized sport. You know, I've watched some of those kids, some of them have probably never picked up a basketball, or at least not picked up a basketball and played on a court against, you know, other teams and before. And when you see them in that environment and the way that they grow from one week to the next, and they go from being kind of shell shocked and having no idea what they're supposed to do to stepping on the court and knowing where they're supposed to be. And if they catch a pass, instead of being panicked, they know what to do next. And, and the self confidence that grows from that and the look. And I remember watching one little guy a couple of weeks ago, probably make his first basket in an actual basketball game in his life, and the look on his face, on any child's face when that happens. That has. Yeah, that has become. That has become my why, because I know what that means for their self confidence. I want kids to know that, you know, that they have value and that they have talent and they have worth and that they don't have to be the most talented at any thing to be able to participate in it and enjoy it and to be able to work at it and get better at it. You don't have to be the best ball handler. You don't have to be the best shooter, for that matter. I feel the same way about musical instruments or singing or dancing. Yeah. Or any. Yeah. Or any kind of activity like that. And so for me, coaching youth sports, that's the why. The why is being able to facilitate sort of those positive life lessons and the self confidence that grows when a young person realizes, hey, you know what? I might not be as fast as so and so, or I might not be able to do whatever as well as so and so, but I can still do it, and I can still make a contribution and that's a life lesson that applies. They can apply in all kinds of settings through the rest of their life.

Melissa: Yeah.

Vaughn: And that's what I hope to teach. That's my biggest why of all.

Melissa: Well, that was a lot of fun.

Melissa: To be able to record that interview with my brother, Vaughn Kimball, and to hear his insights on coaching kids in sports. And if you know my brother, he is amazing with youth. He's worked with them in a lot of different ways and work and volunteer capacities. And so I was so grateful for him to come on and share his expertise and experience. And I think the number one lesson that we could learn, he had a lot of good advice to share. But one of the number one things that stuck out to me was the fact that sometimes when we volunteer, when we say yes, it can be out of obligation or out of being a means to an end or a way to help us reach something else, as it did with him volunteering to be a track coach so he could get a job. Right. But many times as we do that, we then discover our own gifts, our talents, the things that bring us alive. And many times that volunteering can turn into a passion and into us realizing that we found something we can truly love to share with others. So that was one of the main things I took from that interview and really loved learning from him. So don't be afraid to say yes. You don't know what it can turn into and what experiences it might bring for you. So thank you so much for listening this week. And just as a reminder, go ahead and follow us on social media if you aren't already. We're on Instagram, podcast, or on Facebook at the do something more podcast. Or you can share this episode with a friend. Maybe there was someone who came to mind. As you listen to this episode about being a volunteer coach, go ahead and share it with them. And I just want to end by reminding you, I hope this week you can find a way to do something more to lift, help, inspire, or make a difference.