Coach, fan and dad

In rural Iowa, coaches don’t grow on trees. They’re found in school alumni, avid sports fans and parents.

“Growing up, I played all the sports I wanted to play,” Ryan Burwell said. “You just want your kids to be able to do the sports they like, so most of the dads and moms step up and do it.”

As Father’s Day approaches, dads everywhere are revered for their grill skills, lame jokes and fishing prowess. But in small towns, dads also play a vital role in keeping our athletic teams running.

Whether it be a coach whose child comes through the program or a dad who steps in when his child needs a coach, the challenges and beautiful moments of being a player’s dad affects them all.

Soccer

Facing a shortage of coaches for the Creston/Nodaway Valley girls soccer team, it was three dads who took the helm. Adrian Flores, father of senior Bianca; Bill Ralston, father of senior Zoe and Burwell, father of sophomore Olivia, led the schools to their first combined season.

While this wasn’t his first time coaching his daughter, it was Burwell’s first time coaching at the high school level. “It was really amazing and fun actually,” he said. “It was way different than I thought it was going to be, coaching high school.”

He was familiar with the dynamics as he coached his son Wyatt in youth basketball and Wildfire soccer while also helping with padded football practices. With Olivia, he also coached youth basketball and Wildfire soccer.

The father trio works to ensure other coaches primarily work with their daughters to ensure quality coaching. “I don’t always coach Liv,” Burwell said. “If something happens, one of us will go handle that. Sometimes I get a little too much ‘dad’. Liv is pretty used to it. She’s a lot better at that than I am.”

More than just dad for just their own kids, Burwell said coaching is like co-parenting a group of girls sometimes. “It’s crazy. I bring snacks to every practice,” he said. “I have granola bars in my bag. We just bring random stuff. Extra socks — even in high school they forget. You become team dads.”

Burwell said it’s tough sometimes to balance being a coach, fan and a dad, but it’s worth it. “The last game for the girls this year, we lost,” he recounted. “All the parents were there. Seniors were crying of course. Everyone was happy and smiling. I thought, this was well worth it.”

Football

Creston high school head football coach Brian Morrison has been doing the job since his son was little. He got started with the team more than 20 years ago when he wanted to get back to the game he loves.

Though he’s only spent the last four years coaching his son Ty in football, Ty has been involved with the team for years.

“When I first got the head job, he was young,” Morrison said. “He was a ball boy for the varsity squad at an early age. The refs always asked, do you have an older kid that can do it? But I said he’s always done it.”

Before reaching high school, Ty had been a ball boy for the Shrine Bowl and at the UNI Dome with the Creston Panthers.

But high school football wasn’t the first time Ty had been coached by his dad. “I was pretty involved with city baseball when he was going through,” Morrison said. “Me and Gannon Greenwalt’s dad, Ashton Greenwalt, coached a team with both kids on it all the way from tee-ball all the way through seventh grade.”

Morrison said one of the biggest difficulties is not being too hard on Ty. “I know I have been at certain times,” Morrison reflected. “Even in baseball when he was younger, that’s part of it. He understands that I try to hold every kid accountable, whether it be my son, a freshman or the star player on varsity. But I had to keep reminding myself to do that, especially with his class going through the last four years.”

Though Morrison wants his son to succeed, under the Friday night lights, he is first and foremost a coach.

“I reflect after each game,” he said. “We do the coaching responsibility side of it, talk about what we need to improve on as a player. At the end of the season, I tell him great job, and I’m looking forward to next year.”

Morrison also serves as an assistant track and field coach where Ty competed as a sprinter.

A collegiate football player himself, Morrison is proud of Ty for continuing his career at Iowa Central Community College next year, though he said the decision was all Ty’s. “Football was one sport he wanted to do well at,” he said.

After a heartbreaking miss at qualifying for the post season Ty’s junior year, Morrison said competing in the playoffs this year was a full-circle moment.

“It was pretty special because those kids grew up watching some really good football teams,” he said. “It came full circle, having that senior class have the opportunity to do something pretty special.”

Wrestling

It’s all hands on deck for Creston Express Wrestling going as nearly 100 kids sixth grade and below participate in the program.

Coach Matt Buck is one of many dads keeping the program running. Buck’s son Elias and nephew Drew both took silver this year at the Iowa AAU Super Peewee State Tournament.

Buck’s brother Michael Buck also coaches along with Cody Downing, Chad Malmanger and Willie Harris — all dads with sons in the program.

“There’s a lot of fine balance, a lot of mistakes that are made too,” Matt said. “It’s a hard thing with being a coach, especially with wrestling and how many kids we have, being a dad, being a fan. There are lines. When we cross boundaries, we help each other out.”

With so many coaches at their disposal, they try to avoid coaching their own sons.

“We try to get different points of view and different opportunities,” Matt said. “If the kid or parent gets frustrated, someone steps in.”

Matt’s been coaching Elias in wrestling since his son was three years old. “He just came in because I was coaching,” Matt said. “He started wrestling around an hour each week with the little kids.”

Now, Matt and the other coaches have to remind each other how young the athletes are.

“We try to remember it’s a learning experience. They’re going to have good and bad days,” Matt said. “They’re kids, they are going to have off days. We can’t get too high on those wins or too low on those losses. It’s about learning good solid basics. Getting them wanting to compete and liking competing is more of our goal than wins versus losses.”

As a middle school coach, Matt enjoys being a part of teaching kids the skills they will need for high school and beyond.

“It’s awesome to be in that athletic and competitive development with all kids, but especially with my kid and family,” Matt said. “But if everything the kid learned is from me, I did a disservice to my kid and my family.”

Basketball

Mount Ayr assistant basketball coach Jeff Levine was wary to try coaching at the sixth grade level when his son Peyton’s class needed a coach.

“I was very hesitant to coach at the youth level because of the difference in intensity,” Levine said. “Peyton and my wife Amy worked pretty hard on me to coach them, and I decided to give it a shot.  To my surprise, I think it kind of helped me have a better perspective with my high school athletes once I was done working with the kids.”

With his sons frequently attending high school practices, Levine said he can be tougher on his them because they have an advantage when it comes to time with the coach. “It’s not that I am doing it to be mean; I do it because I know what they are capable of in this sport.  I trust them to do the things I ask because we talk about what we should be doing at games in the car and at the dinner table.  So in a sense, they have a leg up on the others, so I should expect them to do things and pick things up quicker than others.”

Living in Mount Ayr and working in Creston can make family time challenging.

“Working in another town and coaching basketball during the winter months would lead to many times I wouldn’t be able to see my family for longer than an hour in the evening sometimes,” Levine explained. “Being able to coach Peyton these last few years in basketball has meant we were able to spend a lot of time together just talking about school and sports and music going from his practice to the high school practice.”

Though coaching sixth grade basketball was only a one-year commitment, Levine is excited to coach his oldest son Carter next year as a freshman on the basketball team.