Vallerand’s reach felt far, wide across state
Jeff Kulbeth remembers being a 24-year-old coach at Blanchard when he met David Vallerand, then an 18-year-old senior on the baseball team.
The two had an instant connection. And years later when Vallerand was named the baseball coach at Washington, he strengthened that connection by bringing Kulbeth on as an assistant.
“We just created a bond like father and son,” Kulbeth said. “It just all tied in.”
Kulbeth wasn’t prepared for Friday night. He described the phone call he received following Washington’s football game as a “gut punch.”
He received news that Vallerand died in an accident Friday evening while helping an accident along Interstate 40 in Yukon. He had stopped along with members of his family to help with a rollover accident when another vehicle lost control and struck Vallerand and 23-year-old Kaylee Hamilton of Fort Cobb, killing both.
Vallerand was 43. He is survived by his wife Tonya and three children.
No funeral arrangements have been announced.
A long-time baseball coach who spent the past two school years as the elementary principal at Okarche, nobody was surprised that Vallerand had stopped to help.
“That’s the one thing that’s the common denominator,” Okarche superintendent Rob Friesen said. “Everybody who finds out what happened realizes it’s typical David. He’s just that type of guy. He’s going to help anybody anytime he can.”
Added Kulbeth: “What a great man. The guy served. That’s what he did. That’s what he did with people. That’s what he did with kids.”
Vallerand coached baseball at Amber-Pocasset and Moore before joining Washington. He helped lead the Warriors to the state tournament multiple times.
Vallerand was also at one time an assistant coach for the Oklahoma City Ambassadors, a team that played regional tournaments and did ministry projects that included mission trips.
In 2007, Vallerand helped Washington baseball player Justin Murphy, who was diagnosed with autism, on and off the field. Vallerand said he learned many things that season, just months after his son Jaxon was diagnosed with autism.
“I made Murph a deal,” Vallerand said in 2012. “I told him I’d teach him something about baseball every day and he’d teach me something about autism.”
The biggest lesson Vallerand learned was how important a dad’s influence would be. So, he stepped away from coaching following the season to help Jaxon.
After a five-year hiatus, he returned to the Washington baseball field with Jaxon flourishing.
“He was a guy that as a coach he was that kind of coach you would want your kid to play for,” Washington athletic director Stuart McPherson said.” He cared about the kids. He was all about the kids.
“As a person, he was one of those guys that just made everybody feel good around him. And that’s the thing I’ve thought about all night long. What kind of person he was, taking mission trips, taking baseball teams overseas to play. He was just a man of God.”
Vallerand eventually left Washington and coaching following the 2014 season and moved to Okarche, where he was named the elementary principal.
It was a matter of time before he impacted the community.
“He’s been here for two years and there’s not a person in the community he hasn’t touched,” Friesen said. “There’s not an elementary student or parent over there that doesn’t think he walks on water.”
Vallerand embraced his new administrative role with the kids. He volunteered with the softball team, where he could coach his daughter Addison, who is a senior on this season’s team. Okarche canceled its softball games in Saturday’s final day of the tournament in Bethany. Coach Booker Blakley said he’s unsure if the team will play Monday at home against Jones as scheduled.
“We’re leaving that up to the girls on how they want to move forward with it,” Blakley said. “He’s just one of the best guys that I’ve known in my life.
“I haven’t known him for a long time, but his dedication to the kids, whether it’s at the elementary or in the athletic program in general he’s as unselfish as any person I could imagine. He was in it for the kids.”