This year Keith Brown is helping with each sport at the high school. His new position is titled a “coaching mentor” as he is providing support for both coaches and players. 

Tricorne: What specifically is your job title and what are your new responsibilities?

Brown: I’m not big on titles, I’m big on actions. We finally decided to call it “coaching mentor” and my role is to support our coaches and our athletes. I’m trying to be an extra level of support for both of them.

Tricorne: What has motivated you to step up and take on this new challenge?

Brown: I’ve done a lot of studying over the last couple of years on leadership, program development, and player development. My life’s work is learning how to grow programs and how to grow kids. In the last 6 or 7 years there has been this movement for who supports coaches. 

Leadership can be very lonely, especially with a small staff. If you are coaching a small sport, a lot of time you are the only coach on the [field]. I’m there to bounce ideas off of. If things aren’t going well I can sit down and talk with coaches, share struggles, and share successes. 

Coaching is a very stressful job because you have arrows coming at you all the time even if you are winning. I wanted to come in and fill that gap, being someone with 26 years of experience, I’m here to support our coaches and kids.

Tricorne: Whose idea was this new position?

Brown: This was my idea. I’ve been thinking about this for years. Last October, I took this idea to Dr. Henneke and Dr. Heffner and I told them I have about 6 or 7 years until I retire and I wanted to be able to pass the things I have learned down. I wanted to be able to pass that legacy down to some of our younger coaches who will be here when I move on. 

Tricorne: Do you think there was a need for this position?

Brown: I think there is definitely a need for this position. No administrator can do what I doing. They take care of getting ready for games, taking care of the money, taking care of all the extra stuff that happens. I’m going to practice every day with different programs. Right now I’m with volleyball, when volleyball doesn’t have practice I go to football. 

I will rotate through and go to all of the other sports throughout the year. I’m sitting on the bench with these players, going to the locker room, I’m doing everyday details that an administrator wouldn’t have time to do. I get to take not only a 30,000-foot view of what’s going on, but I also get down in the mud with these players and see what goes on on a day-to-day basis.

Tricorne: How big of a time commitment is this for you?

Brown: I think in the grand scheme of the entire year it will take more time but on a daily basis, it’s about what I usually do with football. I would coach football in the fall, then coach baseball in the spring, and then coach football again right after that. 

Now instead of coaching just football, I’m going from volleyball to football to wrestling to girls basketball to boys basketball and so on. It will probably be a little more in the span of the year, but on a daily schedule, it’s about the same as what I’m used to. 

Tricorne: How has your experience been so far? Have you enjoyed it?

Brown: Oh my gosh yes! It’s been amazing. I’ve loved getting to know the players on the volleyball team. It’s been a breath of fresh air seeing how these girls compete, how they encourage each other, how they communicate with each other, seeing their team dynamic and trying to grow that. I’ve loved it. I can’t image doing anything else, to be honest with you. It’s so fun.

Tricorne: What is the ultimate goal of this project?

Brown: I think it is just leaving that legacy for our coaches now and our coaches in the future. My ultimate goal is to continue building relationships and build our athletic program. You have to do that by building up people.