It's becoming a case of all in the family with parents stepping in as coaches
High school basketball is becoming more of a family affair, with dads and moms taking on coaching roles in increasing numbers.
The girls hoops provincial tournaments tipped off Wednesday at the Langley Events Centre, with the four tiers of 16 teams apiece playing off toward the championship Saturday. The 32 teams in Quad A and Triple A combined listed 18 moms or dads of current or recently graduated players on coaching staffs.
It's difficult to track down any stats on such trends, but a Postmedia story in December 1997 had about six teams in the top-15 Triple A rankings as having fathers as coaches, and high school programs across all sports as having difficultly finding people to run teams in a familiar refrain for at least a decade. Estimates have more than 50 per cent of high school coaches coming from outside the school.
Moms and dads are helping fill that void.
“High school basketball is such a great experience and we're getting to have that experience together,” said Chrissy Nohr, a non-teacher coach whose Brookswood Bobcats include daughter Jordyn, a Grade 9 guard.
Nohr (née: Dumas), who also coaches club basketball, played her high school at Surrey's Holy Cross Crusaders before going on to line up for Langara College and then Trinity Western University.
The Bobcats, of Langley, are the No. 1 seeds in Triple A this week and opened up action Wednesday with a 108-26 win over the No. 16 Caledonia Kermodes of Terrace. There are just two Grade 12s on Brookswood, with the majority of the squad playing for Nohr last season with the Bobcats junior team that won the provincial crown.
Jordyn, 15, won the junior tournament Most Valuable Player Award. She's the oldest of three children — along with Mason, 13, and Harper, 10 — of Chrissy and former Canadian national team guard Randy Nohr.
“When we're at games or practice, I'm her coach. Everywhere else, I'm her mom. I think we've figured out ways to separate it,” Chrissy said of Jordyn.
“When I'm coaching in the game, she's not my daughter. I will treat her as she fits into the team. I coach my younger daughter as well and I treat her completely differently because they're different players.”
There are parent coaches who work at the schools, like Simon Dykstra, whose Sir Winston Churchill Dogs of Vancouver feature his daughter Louise, a Grade 12 guard/forward. The No. 9 Bulldogs opened the Quad A tournament with a 70-56 loss to the No. 8 Kelowna Owls. Simon's a physical education teacher at Churchill. He was coaching boys basketball there before moving over to girls when older daughter Marah came in for Grade 8. Marah's a former Bulldogs standout who's in her sophomore season at Montana State University. As it happens, Louise just committed to Northern Colorado — rivals of Montana State in the Big Sky Conference — so next year brings a new challenge for the Dykstra household.
“My wife and I are becoming experts on travel in that conference,” Simon said. “When the coaches at Northern Colorado were recruiting Louise, one of the things they asked her was if she'd be OK playing against her sister, and she told them `yes, of course.' She's competed against her sister her whole life.”
Dykstra played high school with the North Surrey Spartans before moving to SFU for university ball. He's best known as the coach that guided the Kitsilano Blue Demons — featuring Levon Kendall and Chris Porteous — to back-to back Quad A boys provincial titles in 2001-02.
“It's different because you have to be so careful with your role as a parent,” he said. “You have to spell it out to them: I'm talking to you as your coach right now. You have to keep the two roles separate or it can get pretty frustrating for everyone. You need to try to not blur the lines. Don't embarrass her in front of her teammates as her dad. Don't start coaching her when she's at home. I learned to really appreciate the drive back home from practice and that time on the road when you're with four or five girls and one of them is your daughter. When this is over, I'll miss it more than any other coaching that I've done.”
Kelly Powell (née: Devlin) was one of the players interviewed for the 1997 story. She was point guard then for a Port Moody Blues team coached by her father Alex Devlin.
This season, Powell has been coaching her daughter Ellie with the Grade 9 Heritage Woods Kodiaks of Port Moody. One of her assistant coaches is Alex.
“While I valued it then, as time goes on and now coaching my own daughter with my dad you truly get to appreciate what a unique experience it is,” Powell explained.
Dani Langford was another player referenced, a point guard playing for dad Bruce Langford with Mission's Heritage Park Highlanders. She went on to star for her dad's teams at SFU, and she now works for the Golden State Warriors as manager of player rehabilitation in the physiotherapy department.
“We have quite the list of special times,” Dani says of those teams coached by Bruce at both Heritage Park and SFU. “However the ones that I will cherish the most are the drive home or driving to the games. The early morning open gyms, of him rebounding for me in the driveway. All the hours he gave to me and his patience allowed me to love my childhood and basketball.”