I have been coaching a youth running team for 14 years now. 27 seasons. 570 practices. Hundreds of Personal Records set, and just as many smashed. Thousands of miles. My first team had seven runners and the roster grew over the years to a steady 60-ish. I have had the pleasure of coaching hundreds of kids and working with dozens of other coaches.
On Thursday, I ran my last 5k with the team: an epic, hilly, twisty, creek-splashing trail run in West Chester called the Trail Blazer. I can’t imagine a better place to wrap up.
Here are some of the things I learned while coaching these runners.
— Running is a forever sport. As you get older, there are fewer opportunities to play football, hockey, or soccer. First, because you’re old. Second, because your schedule fills up, so finding a league that fits your busy life is hard. All you need to keep running, though, is a decent pair of shoes and a place to wear them out. Running is also a global sport, so pretty much anywhere you go, you will be able to find a community of runners.
If you find yourself halfway across the country and want to make some friends fast, try the local running store.
— Just because kids are young, doesn’t mean they can’t lead. Every season I have watched runners stop to help someone who was struggling, heard teammates pay compliments to someone who worked through something hard, and had runners tell me that someone else had a tough day at school and could use a boost. At our 5ks, when there are out-and-back sections, the runners on their way back are cheering on their teammates as loudly as the runners on their way out, even though yelling makes running harder. This team has always carried itself.
If you give a third, fourth, or fifth grader the opportunity to inspire others, they will probably end up inspiring you.
— Running is both the easiest and hardest sport there is. It is so easy, most people learn to run before they can even say, “mama.” But it is so hard that coaches of other sports use it as a punishment for their athletes.
In this way, running is like character: You build it one challenging moment at a time.
— I have had some really fast runners over the years, but the chances of me coaching a future Olympian were always basically zero. The chances that I might coach someone who would someday coach youth sports were 100%. I have already had several of my runners return to coach the team with me as high schoolers (and they’re always the runners’ favorite coaches).
It is impossible to describe how it feels to see the runners I knew as third graders mature into the kind of men and women who want to inspire younger runners.
— If you really want to create a winning team, start by being positive all the time. At the end of our practices, we gave out dog tags to a few runners who had done something special at practice. One season, at the first practice, I asked for people to join me for optional sprints. Only five runners joined me. I gave them all dog tags. A week later when I offered optional sprints at the end of practice, every runner put their toe on the line.
That team ended up being the fastest one I had coached up till then.
— I have learned from 26 previous seasons that the first day we don’t have practice is the hardest for coaches. So it was that on Friday at 3:25, when my alarm didn’t tell me to put on my sneakers and leave the office, I felt bereft of the opportunity to see an incredible group of kids do something extraordinary on an otherwise unremarkable weekday afternoon.
I am extremely thankful to all of the coaches I have worked with over the years, and to the parents who thought, “Yeah, I bet my kid would like spending 90 minutes running after school,” for sending your kids our way. But most of all, I am thankful to the runners for pouring their hearts into this team. I’ve known for years that I was getting as much out of this program as they were. In truth, probably more.
Anna Lakin Guerry, 11, and her 9-year-old brother Joe sifted through wrapped gifts and cardboard suitcases Friday afternoon at Starkville Public Library, packing up more than just paper souvenirs. Inside each suitcase were crafts, activities and a passport to travel the world, no place ticket required.
The Guerrys were picking up their second “suitcase” as part of the Bulldog Explorers Program, a monthly initiative led by Mississippi State University professors Kelly Moser and Kenneth Anthony. Each box introduces children to a different country through hands-on crafts, basic foreign language lessons and cultural exploration.
This summer, Anna Lakin opened her first suitcase and embarked on a trip through Spain with basic vocabulary words, a food guide and materials to make Spanish clay dolls.
“I’ve only done one before,” she told The Dispatch on Friday, suitcase in hand. “There was a passport in there and a sheet that had different foods in that language. The activity … you were supposed to make this doll out of clay, but it was hard.”
Although the first suitcase proved to be a challenge for Anna Lakin, she said she was excited to try again this month.
A stack of cardboard suitcases is pictured atop a table Friday afternoon at Starkville Public Library. The suitcases are part of the Bulldog Explorers Program, an initiative to expose young learners to different cultures through hands-on crafts, basic foreign language lessons and cultural exploration. Cadence Harvey/Dispatch Staff
Since February, Moser, an associate professor of Spanish and World Language Teaching in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literature, and Anthony, department head for the Department of Teacher Education and Leadership, have delivered 50 suitcase boxes to the library on the last Friday of each month (or the next to last Friday this month, since the library will be closed the day after Christmas).
Past destinations have included Argentina, Spain, Uzbekistan and more, with each kit pulling together crafts, foundational geography, cultural lessons and foreign language exposure, often developed with help from MSU faculty and staff.
Moser said the idea grew out of noticing the popularity of subscription boxes like KiwiCo, intended to help kids learn about science, technology, engineering, arts and math.
Kelly Moser
“I didn’t see anything similar to what we’re doing with Bulldog Explorers, which is really our way to connect younger students to both the local community and the diversity that we see in the local community through languages and different cultures represented,” Moser told The Dispatch on Thursday. “… It’s not a typical subscription in the way that one family might be coming every single month. We’re trying to get as many people to have access as possible.”
The boxes are free and available on a first-come, first-served basis. While the program is designed for kindergarten through eighth grade, Moser said activities are especially well-suited for first- through fifth-graders.
To make lessons engaging, Moser and Anthony connect each country back to Mississippi, weaving in facts like how the state was once a French colony, or how both Mississippi and Uzbekistan share cotton as a cash crop, or even simply, what the distance is between Starkville and Rome, Italy.
A suitcase of adventure?
December’s suitcase revisited countries from previous months through the lens of winter holidays and celebrations around the world.
“The focus is going back to all the places we’ve been in the past and looking at how different cultures celebrate winter holidays,” Anthony told The Dispatch on Thursday. “One of the cool things about this one is oftentimes we think Christmas is celebrated the same way. … But they’re very culturally influenced.”
Kenneth Anthony
The box explores traditions like how in France, children leave shoes by the fireplace for Father Christmas to fill with treats, while in Italy, La Befana flies on a broomstick to deliver gifts or coal on Jan. 5th. It also explores how Hanukkah is celebrated throughout the world.
Nearly all the faces filtering through the library Friday afternoon were new to the program, though children’s coordinator Loraine Walker said repeat families are a familiar sight.
Loraine Walker
“Once people get started on this program, they’re hooked,” she told The Dispatch on Friday. “It’s wonderful. … I mean, it’s like a suitcase of adventure. All of our families, once they start coming, they keep coming. But we’re lucky. Word of mouth is getting around so we are getting new ones too.”
Anna Lakin’s mother, Josie Guerry, said they’ve visited several times since their first experience to find that the suitcases were already gone.
“They’re very popular,” she said. “… I just think it’s awesome that it’s something you can do easily, and it’s in a place that everybody can get to easily. (Anna Lakin) really did have fun with it.”
Interest has already spread beyond Starkville with some suitcases sent to families in Louisville, Hattiesburg, Columbus and Flowood. Moser and Anthony plan to increase deliveries to 75 suitcases each month in January.
“For us, the idea was something small, and we weren’t sure people would be interested in it,” Moser said. “So we were just pleasantly surprised that families were interested in something like this.”
Anthony said the response from families underscores the value of subjects often overlooked in school.
“We both care about subjects that are kind of marginalized in school curriculum,” Anthony said. “It is a nationwide thing, and it’s a generational thing. If you’re going to skip a class, it’s going to be social studies, and if you’re gonna drop something from a degree program at university, it’s going to be a foreign language.
“To me, this idea that people really are attracted to learning about foreign languages, other places and other cultures, yet they may not get it in the organized school curriculum and school setting, I think this indicates that there’s value in it,” he added. “That’s the big thing and it’s heartening to me, as a social studies guy, to (see) people actually care about their world.”
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Volleyball Camp and Girls Youth Basketball Leagues Starts Soon with JPRD | Raccoon Valley Radio – The One to Count On
The Jefferson Parks and Recreation Department has two youth sports programs starting soon.
According to JPRD Assistant Director Lyndsey Wathen, a Youth Volleyball Camp is happening this coming Monday and Tuesday for third-sixth graders. She states that the third and fourth grade session is from 10-11:15am and the fifth and sixth graders are from 11:15am-12:30pm, both taking place at the Greene County Community Center. Wathen points out that the camp is being led by the Greene County High School Volleyball Varsity Head Coach Chris Heisterkamp and Adrianna Vargas. The cost to participate is $10 for community center members and $15 for non-members.
Wathen notes the other program is a second through sixth grade Girls Basketball League that will be on Sundays in January from 1-2pm also at the community center. The cost to participate is $30, which includes a t-shirt and there is a discount rate of $10 for any girls that did the basketball camp this past October.
To sign up for either program, contact the community center at 515-386-2134 or click here.
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New 70-foot light poles stretch skyward from the perimeter of Keach Park as part of the long-awaited plan to illuminate one of Concord’s most popular athletic fields.
The work is a culmination of years of lobbying from the community organizing group Change for Concord, which implored the City Council to approve the project to support youth equity and access to outdoor recreation on the Heights.
Once complete, the Heights will have the only athletic field with lights in Concord besides the athletic complex at Memorial Field.
Despite the progress, the design is not what advocates had envisioned. These lights will cover a youth-sized field, which is smaller than a traditional soccer pitch.
“Our proposal that we submitted to the city council was acquiring the whole field to have lights,” said Fisto Ndayishimiye, one of the Change for Concord leaders. “The reason why we did that was to be more inclusive, to make sure that the field is utilized by many groups at different times.”
Parks & Recreation Director David Gill said that the area covered is enough for a seven-on-seven soccer match and will greatly expand the soccer clinics and pitch availability for general use.
The city held back on adding more lights to avoid affecting the nearby softball diamond, Gill said.
The existing plan, according to Gill, will not illuminate abutting houses much, won’t generate much light pollution and is also compliant with environmental regulations.
Installation began last month, with nighttime use ready to begin sometime between May and June of next year.
The new lights at Keach Park illuminate the youth-sized soccer field and will be operational sometime between May and June. Credit: ALEXANDER RAPP / Monitor
On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the field will be available for rent for leagues and organized groups from dusk to 10 p.m. It will only be closed if the field is deemed unusable or unsafe due to heavy rain or other weather conditions, in which case the public will be notified through Parks & Recreation’s regular channels.
While the lights aren’t everything Ndayishimiye’s group hoped for, he was glad some progress was made after seven years of discussion.
“I really appreciate the leaders of the community, our city staff, for making this happen, even though it took a long time,” he said.
What started as a way to get free sports cleats and shoes to kids in need is becoming much more, especially for one Kewaunee family.
Announced earlier this month, Play 4 Owen, 23’s Cleats 4 Kidz and local artist Zane Statz are collaborating on a new scholarship and award called Laces 4 Life. The initiative will recognize student-athletes from Kewaunee, Algoma, Southern Door, Gibraltar and Sturgeon Bay who are excelling in the classroom and in the community.
The $2,300 scholarship and cleat award honors Owen Vaughn, who died by suicide in February. The three-sport athlete became a source of inspiration for the Kewaunee wrestling and baseball teams as they wrapped up the school year.
A few towns away, 11-year-old Bentley Gerczak has been busy running his organization that helps connect young families with the equipment they need to compete in youth sports. What started as giving back a pair of soccer shoes he had won has grown into donating more than 150 pairs of new shoes and hundreds of used pairs for redistribution.
Gerczak has expanded the mission beyond cleats, collecting shoeboxes filled with nonperishable food items for local pantries. His father, Jim, and Owen’s father, Chris Vaughn, are friends, leading Gerczak to look for ways he could help carry on Owen’s legacy.
That effort included donating the pair of spikes the baseball team brought with them on their run to the state championship. Gerczak didn’t want to stop there, helping organize the scholarship, which will be awarded annually at a special banquet. He hopes other kids will be inspired to find ways to give back and that community members will support them in doing so.
It has not been an easy year for the Vaughn family since losing Owen in February. Chris Vaughn said he is thankful for the community support that rallied around them in the months following, whether through hugs, meals dropped off on their porch or events organized in his son’s honor.
That support helped lead to the creation of Play 4 Owen, which is launching the Owen Vaughn Memorial Scholarship as part of Laces 4 Life while also promoting mental health awareness. Vaughn said the goal is to help ensure no other family goes through what they did and to carry on Owen’s memory.
The Laces 4 Life scholarship application, which includes a nomination from a coach, teacher or other member of a school’s faculty, is due April 15, 2026. More information can be found below.
The fan who was involved in the altercation with Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver DK Metcalf will not be punished, the NFL said after upholding Metcalf’s suspension. Metcalf, who was suspended two games for the incident, argued the fan was out of line, yet the NFL said there were ‘no violations to the fan code of conduct’ from the fan.
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said that he had a conversation with Metcalf, who explained why he did what he did. Beyond that, Tomlin would not elaborate, as he does not condone what Metcalf did, but still wants to support him.
n top of that, Tomlin hears that there could be potential legal ramifications stemming from that incident, so he did not want to speak upon the situation much.
“He did explain to me why he did what he did. I certainly don’t condone the behavior, but I support DK. I really don’t have a lot to add other than what I just told you. I think he has a hearing this afternoon, an appeals hearing, and I certainly don’t want to weigh in prior to that. I have heard more recently that there might be legal ramifications, but I’d better be careful of what I say and how I say it,” Tomlin said.
Metcalf told Chad Johnson that Ryan Kennedy, the fan who was struck, called him a racial slur and used unsavory language towards his mother. Kennedy, through his attorney, vehemently denied using that language, instead stating he called Metcalf by his full government name.
A video emerged on Tuesday that showed Kennedy saying ‘that was the goal, folks’ after he was shoved by Metcalf. Tomlin said the culture around sports of provoking people and using ‘volatile language’ is ‘unfortunate.’
“I just think volatile rhetoric is a component of our business, unfortunately,” Tomlin said. “It just is. But not only our business, but college and youth sport parents. It’s just a component of sport that’s just developed and developed in a big way in recent years and it’s unfortunate.”
Metcalf was suspended two games by the NFL and is now down for the rest of the regular season. Should the Ravens win against the Packers and the Steelers lose to the Browns, that means Metcalf would miss the pivotal win and in game in Week 18.
