The 29/1
Official Podcast of the West Ottawa High School Athletic Program. 29 Sports, One Team. The show that brings you into the lives of student athletes, coaches and other faces in the Panther Sports Community. Bringing you the stories you might otherwise never hear. Join Rodney Vellinga and Athletic Director Bill Kennedy as they dive in with you to get to know each other a little bit better.
The 29/1
"What It's Supposed To Be" : A Lifetime Perspective Of Athletics With West Ottawa Superintendent Tim Bearden
What makes a high school athletic experience truly special? For West Ottawa Superintendent Tim Bearden, it's that magical Friday night feeling – middle schoolers creating "white noise" in one section, the high school "Black Hole" roaring in another, dozens of cheerleaders, 120 marching band members, football players giving their all, and youth players taking the field at halftime. "You just look around and think, man, this is so cool. This is what it's supposed to be."
In this thoughtful conversation, Bearden opens up about his lifelong connection to athletics – from his days as a high school golfer and track athlete to becoming a state championship-winning volleyball coach, and eventually a proud sports parent of his kids and watching his daughter Kennedy score the Golden Goal for GVSU in the national championship.
Along the way, he shares how these experiences shaped his educational philosophy and approach to leadership. Bearden's journey reveals the true power of educational athletics. "Athletics as a platform teaches a lot of valuable lessons – in some ways, lessons that are more memorable and will stick with kids longer than lessons they learn in the classroom," he explains. His personal evolution as a coach mirrors what many parents experience – moving from an intense focus on competition to understanding that "if it's not a fun experience for kids, then we screwed up."
The conversation explores West Ottawa's commitment to inclusive athletic opportunities through initiatives like Panther Pathways, which removed transportation barriers for elementary students, and how the district's impressive facilities support student pride and participation. Bearden also addresses challenges facing high school sports, including the battle to maintain high school athletic involvement and the importance of preserving multi-sport participation.
Whether you're a coach, parent, educator, or simply someone who values the role of athletics in building character and community, this episode offers valuable perspective on what truly matters in high school sports. Listen now and rediscover why, even decades later, those team experiences remain some of life's most cherished memories.
This episode was recorded on September 23, 2025.
Podcasts now dropping at 5pm every Sunday evening for that late weekend chill, or listen Monday AM during that morning commute or workout. Please like, follow, subscribe, or leave a review. Even share with someone who might like to listen. Thanks for taking the time to get to know each other a little bit better. The people who make West Ottawa Athletics what it is. Go WO!
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Special thanks to Laura Veldhof Photography.
It's just this year, in our first home game, seeing the middle school group have the white noise and having a couple hundred, two, three hundred middle school kids in the stands. The other end of the stands we've got the black hole with our high school student section. We've got 38 or 39 cheerleaders I don't know how many Bill, 120 kids in the marching band. All these kids playing football. We've got the youth football kids coming out into the field at halftime and you just look around and you're like man, this is so cool.
Speaker 2:This is what it's supposed to be. Hey everybody, this is Rodney Valinga with the West Ottawa High School Athletic Program, and you're listening to the 29.1 Podcast, 29 sports, one team, the show that brings you into the lives of student athletes, coaches and other faces in the Panther sports community, bringing you the stories you might otherwise never hear. Join myself and Athletic Director Bill Kennedy as we dive in with you to get to know each other a little bit better.
Speaker 3:A lifetime in athletics can offer a unique perspective on what's important and what truly matters.
Speaker 4:Today, on the 29.1 podcast, we are joined by West Ottawa Superintendent Tim Bearden. Tim walks us through a life in sports, from his playing days to coaching and eventually becoming a sports dad.
Speaker 3:This thoughtful conversation gives great insight on the role of athletics in high school and how purposeful decisions by a district can change lives through sport.
Speaker 4:West Ottawa, Superintendent Tim Bearden up next on the 29.1 Podcast. Let's get it.
Speaker 3:Hey everybody, welcome back to another edition of the 29.1 podcast. I'm Rodney Valinga and I'm here with Panthers Athletic Director Bill Kennedy. Today's guest is a longtime athlete who's been around sports his entire life. He was a varsity athlete in multiple sports in high school, became a coach at both the high school and college level. Later on, he was an athletic director for some time, then eventually threw on the Zebra Stripes and became a referee, which he continues to do to this day. You can find him on both the tennis and pickleball courts now where, like the rest of us, he will struggle with hitting that tennis shot and pickleball and that pickleball shot and tennis. It just doesn't work. He now leads the district as West Ottawa superintendent, a position he has held for over four years, and it's our pleasure to ask who is it.
Speaker 1:Tim.
Speaker 4:Bearden Tim, thanks so much for taking some time and stopping in. I know you're a busy man in all the doings here at West Ottawa so I appreciate the time.
Speaker 1:Appreciate you guys having me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're going to really kind of talk about the roles of athletics and education, community student development and Tim. I want to start off with a very important question. What did you have for breakfast?
Speaker 1:Oh man, I had a protein shake pretty much every day. That's my go-to.
Speaker 3:That's one of your questions. You asked a lot. Being a teacher and all that trying to connect with students, right? You would purposely go out of your way to ask them a question about their day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where'd you get that research?
Speaker 1:Hey hey, hey, I'm pretty good, go ahead. Yeah, I don't know how it got started, but as a teacher just doing roll call, I would ask every kid some kind of silly question to start the day. And then one kid told me at one time that I was the only adult who had talked to him that day, and then that reinforced it to me. I'm like, oh, I got to keep doing this and I've had kids come back years later and say, man, that was so funny, that was so great and we would get into fun. It would only take five or six minutes out of every class period but it was worth it. We made great connections with kids. It was fun.
Speaker 4:Yeah, those little nuggets are how you build relationships in the classroom. I mean, I can go back as you're telling that story about asking silly questions. I remember doing roll the first time and I would let kids decide what they wanted to be called in my class, and one kid wanted to be called Smasher Joe. So, I called him Smasher Joe for the entire semester. You know, you're just meeting them where they're at.
Speaker 1:I had a really quiet kid in class once and the kids all got him Remember that song. Shiny Happy People from RM.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I just I don't remember what I asked him. I said how are you doing today? And he's like I'm a shiny, happy person.
Speaker 4:He was one of those kids that never said a word and everybody just cracked up and it was like for the rest of the semester. He was shiny, happy person. So it's all about making those connections.
Speaker 3:So we haven't had this in a while is it just two, yep two now, and then it'll be a couple more later here, oh, like fairly soon, okay, yeah, it's all about making those connections and doing something like that does. Of course, you are also known for your dad jokes, bad jokes. You want to hit us with a few well, I'll tell you.
Speaker 1:The one I told at graduation last year is my favorite dad joke of all time is how do you find will, how do you track will? Smith in the snow? Just follows the, follow the fresh prince see so good.
Speaker 4:So there's a dad joke. Tim does an awesome thing. Every friday we get something called friday notes. I get sent out and it always closes with Starbucks star of the week, which we get to recognize somebody in the district that's done an outstanding job and has been nominated. But then the dad joke. At the end I'm always scrolling to the bottom Like, okay, I got to see what the dad joke is.
Speaker 1:The funny thing is, the first time I did Friday notes, I put a dad joke. I send a dad joke to my kids all the time when they were away at school or something, and I put a dad joke in and I wasn't thinking anything of it. I didn't mean for it to be like a weekly feature. And so the next week I didn't have a dad joke and I got a bunch of emails from people saying, hey, where's the dad joke? So I'm like, okay, and now I have a dad joke. I get dad joke books for Christmas, I get all this stuff. So now I became the dad joke guy. It wasn't really that big a thing before, but it is now.
Speaker 3:It is now we hit up with you again. Yeah Well, you're superintendent here at West Ottawa High School when you know a lot of time of decisions with resources and facilities and program decisions are being made, and understanding what that does for developing student athletes and young people from your perspective is quite invaluable. A perspective for you that began as an athlete in high school, a young kid in high school. You played some different sports in high school. What were they? Tim?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's interesting From middle school on. So middle school I played football, basketball, baseball, like most kids my age did. We started playing that way when I got to high school. In fact this helps sort of shape how I view things. That was a time when school districts had to pass millages in order to support programs. So for my freshman and sophomore year of high school, our school district failed to pass millages that would support athletics, so we had no sub-varsity athletic teams. So it really kind of shaped my high school experience a little bit. So I ended up playing golf and track as a high school athlete.
Speaker 1:My best sports in high school were actually probably tennis and volleyball, two sports that we didn't have and I didn't have an opportunity to play and we didn't have the facilities for. So I think when we're here at West Ottawa, one of the cool things about our programming is we really do have something for everybody. I don't think there's anything that someone's involved in that we don't have an outlet that would serve, whether it's facility or program, and you know that's a really cool thing. But for me, high school golf might've been the greatest thing in the world. You know where every day you just go out and play golf with your buddies and it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:But my family was not athletic family. So for me playing sports even as a young kid, my family was not athletic family. So for me playing sports even as a young kid, my dad was never the guy that coached our team or anything. I was always jealous of the kids whose dad carried around the equipment bag. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world to go home with all the catcher stuff you know.
Speaker 1:So, as my kids grew up. I really wanted to do that and coached all my kids all through their youth athletics and stuff. So my experiences did sort of shape how I view things and how I have viewed them.
Speaker 4:What high school did you go to, Tim?
Speaker 1:Swartz Creek High School. It's in the Flint area, just between Flint and Lansing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so that's where Coach Terry Cutter, I think, spent some time there.
Speaker 1:He was a substitute teacher there when I was in school. I talked to him about it. He and his brother both were substitute teachers there back years ago. That's how old he is, Cause I'm pretty old and he was. He was teaching there.
Speaker 4:He's still out. He's still out. Uh, assisting Reed Murphy now with the golf program and still getting after it.
Speaker 3:So do you have a favorite memory from your own high school days about playing sports? And that stands out.
Speaker 1:My favorite memories. Honestly, I have some great. I will just stop there.
Speaker 4:That'll be the last one.
Speaker 3:All right, you just start with my favorite memory.
Speaker 1:Just some good memories from competition and stuff, but I think my favorite memories honestly were practices and the time before and after practice. I think, rodney, you and I were talking the other day and I said one of the things I was jealous of with my own kids was being part of a team. And I'm like man, just take that all in and really appreciate all that, because as you get older it's harder to have that feeling and I just love that feeling of hanging out with your buddies after practice, after an event, after a thing, being in a locker room, being around a team. So we've endeavored to try to create as much of a team atmosphere as we can, but it's still not the same. It's the kind of thing that really, once you get past high school and college, you probably most people won't get to experience something like that again in their lifetime. So it's a really. It's a really cool feature, I think.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's something I feel like had kind of led me in. Something I guess I take into my own professional work now is that I feel like I am still somewhat part of that team atmosphere when I'm on the sidelines or down on the field. Even though I'm not competing or coaching, I'm still around it and I'm supporting them in some way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's really for a lot of us. It's why we're sitting in this room today. It's people that coach athletic trainers, people that administrate sports, people that work in concessions. You know, we've got the chain gangs on a Friday night. We're all really still searching for that, or trying to have it part of our lives. When you think about the high school experience of sports, how does that fit into the mission of West Ottawa?
Speaker 1:Well, I really do believe in the idea of educational athletics, that athletics as a platform when they're in school settings teach a lot of valuable lessons in some ways, lessons that are more memorable and will stick with kids longer than lessons they learn in the classroom.
Speaker 1:I don't remember really anything from algebra too, but I can remember a lot of competitive moments in my lifetime, both successes and failures, and I think that's true for kids everywhere, that universally that's so. The educational experience of athletics teaches kids a lot of different kind of life lessons that they don't necessarily learn in classroom settings and they learn in a really powerful ways. I used to say all the time like if we could put our varsity physics team out on a Friday night in front of 3000 people against Hudsonville's varsity physics team, out on a Friday night in front of 3,000 people against Hudsonville's varsity physics team, it would really ramp up the urgency of learning physics.
Speaker 1:You know, when your examination, your assessment, your final thing is in front of a crowd, in front of a bunch of people, and you're doing it with people you've worked hard with and committed to a common cause with over time. That's a really special thing. It's really unique.
Speaker 3:Bill, what particular lessons did you have? Anything growing up where you kind of had a moment where athletics taught you something special that you've hung on to most of your life?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, I think, just the value of working really hard and taking pride in everything that you do. I was never. I never scored a touchdown. I played nine years of football.
Speaker 3:No scoop and score.
Speaker 4:No scoop and score. I had a couple of picks, a couple of fumble recoveries, but never got to the end zone. But I took so much pride in you know, the macho me would say I took so much pride in stealing another person's will because of where I played I played along the line and it was a physical position that those are some of those like memories. But, like Tim said, I don't even remember a whole lot of college football games. I remember all of the times with my nine roommates who are also football players, after games back in our dorm as we're recapping the game or and we're all exhausted and just whipped, and those are the things that stand out. And I'm still on a text thread with all those guys and we're just constantly badgering each other with different things.
Speaker 3:So that's great, super fun. What's the maybe one misconception, tim, that the public might have about the role of athletics and education? Anything that you see, that you hear and you're like, no, that's not really what we're trying to do.
Speaker 1:Well, I think one big misconception is this idea that coaches have some different kind of motivations or different interests than teachers and really, at their core, teaching and coaching are the same thing. If you're good at one, you're good at the other, and I've rarely seen somebody who was good at one of those things and wasn't good at the other if they were really committed to it. And I think people sometimes don't see that or understand that. There's the stereotypical coach from a sitcom show that's got the gray sweatshirt that says coach and he's carrying a whistle and he doesn't seem to care about anything else.
Speaker 1:My experience coaching myself and my experience being around coaches is that coaches care deeply about their players on a lot of different levels, really care about them and are committed to their craft.
Speaker 1:You know that good coaching is good teaching, that you build things, that you start with the end in mind and you work backwards those are all tenets of good curriculum and good classroom instruction. Same thing is true with coaching. You know people think coaches show up with a whistle and they just start practice and coaches spend a lot of time planning what their practice is going to look like. As a coach, I used to plan my practices in 10 minute blocks. I would start with the end, say, hey, here's what I really want us to achieve by the end of practice day. Okay, how do we get there? And start with things that build one on top of each other it wasn't just throwing out a ball and hoping that we would figure it out and I think a lot of people don't don't realize the amount of work that coaches put in before and after practices and competitions to be prepared and to give their kids the best possible experience.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have a joke with my friend where it's like hey, if you're in, you're in and you'll know. And coaches, they're in, oh, they're all in. You coach a lot yourself, right? You're an athlete in high school, but your love of sports continues. You're a teacher and then you coach in both high school and college. Maybe share with us the sports you coached, tim.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I coached women's volleyball at the high school level. I was fortunate to win a state championship at Aston as a coach there. I coached at Mott Community College for seven years as the head coach there and was the head coach at Wayne State University for four years in GLIAC and NCAA Division II, and the whole time I was a head women's college volleyball coach. I was also a full-time teacher and at the time there I think there were maybe two part-time coaches in the GLIAC, so I had a day job and then I was coaching at the collegiate level I had a great experience.
Speaker 1:It was awesome. I really loved it. Have some great connections with players and former players who I to this day I'm still really good friends with. But coach that I at various times I've coached everything coached baseball, basketball, track, coached track for years at the high school level Really enjoyed that.
Speaker 1:You know each thing is is unique and it's and has its own kind of nuances. But track and individual sports are pretty cool because there's not a lot of subjectivity to it. You know you're either faster or you're not. You jump higher, you don't. It's not a coach's decision who's who's the fastest and that takes a lot of things out of it. It also allows kids to really see their growth, incrementally or in big steps. You know they can track their personal bests and I love that. Coaches celebrate those things as much as they celebrate wins in an event. You know if a kid PRs, that's as if you're out watching our cross country or track kids. You see some kid PR and finish 12th and everybody's high-fiving that kid and going crazy because they had a personal best. And that's one of the really cool things about athletics that you know you can celebrate those improvements and see them.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we have the PR bell out at the track. So PR happens in a track meet Kid gets to go over and ring it. Frank's got the PR bell in the weight room now. So when I mean I'm down in my office and I hear the bell going, I'm like all right, somebody just achieved something they haven't done before. Pretty neat.
Speaker 3:How did you balance? Haven't done before, which is pretty neat how did you balance? Jay billis came out with a thing on instagram just a few days ago where he talked about his different view on high school sports now and what he says is for a lot of these athletes, this is it, and coaches have a responsibility to make that a good experience for those athletes during that time. For you as a coach, tim, how did you balance creating a good experience with also being competitive and, you know, making hard calls about playing time and all that with with young kids?
Speaker 1:You know, we used to have this conversation with a, with a friend of mine, rory Matter, who is a great coach in the Flint area, and we would talk about, you know, sometimes taking a group of athletes without a lot of talent and moving them from being not very successful to being moderately successful was a way better and more rewarding coaching experience than taking a group of kids that was already pretty skilled and moving them, maybe incrementally, to a slightly higher level.
Speaker 1:And we used to talk about where it was most valuable to put our best coaches, like when we put our best coaches at the freshman or JV level. Sometimes I think that's true, you know, and I think good coaches don't really care so much where they coach or what level they coach. I mean, people who are competitive, want to compete at the highest levels, but they want to work with kids, you know, and they want to work with people, and that's how you balance it, like if you're really in it for the right reasons, it doesn't matter so much where you coach, you can have a great time. I was joking with Pat and said hey, you want to coach. You know, before we came in Panther Pathways flag football, he said that would be awesome because Pat Collins, because Pat loves to coach and he loves kids and he loves people and he loves to see them improve, and it really doesn't matter what level that happens.
Speaker 3:Did you see personally you started out. How old were you when you first started coaching?
Speaker 1:So I was a head women's volleyball coach at age 22.
Speaker 3:Wow, there we go. Okay, and then how old were you when you stopped coaching?
Speaker 1:Well, I never really stopped coaching. I coached my kids all the way through. But my last year at Wayne State was in. It was 1998. That was my last season in the fall of 98. So that was the last time I formally coached. But I coached my kids through. Aau through youth sports, through Little League, and never really stopped.
Speaker 3:For you, as everyone has people right. Bill Kennedy is different today than he was a year and a half ago For coaches. How did you see yourself change over time from being that 22 year old young man to 1998 older experience when you stopped officially coaching like? How did you change over time? And then how did you see the profession, maybe when you stopped?
Speaker 1:That's a great question. Some things are hugely different. I mean, being a dad really changed everything for me. It changed a lot of my perspective and I look back at some of the things I said and did as a young coach. I'm embarrassed by him. Now I'm like gosh, I can't believe that I thought that was that important or it was that angry about something that really wasn't that big a deal, and I think that perspective of having my own kids made a huge difference for me. But I think the biggest thing is, you know, is keeping the main thing, the main thing, and we get distracted by all these little things that are ancillary, that aren't really important. I'll give you an example. This is funny the first call on a snow day, basically after I, after I decided a snow day, is usually Bill asking me what time coaches can practice.
Speaker 2:And when.
Speaker 1:I was coaching and if we had a snow day, I was desperate to make sure we didn't miss practice time. Right Now, in my advanced age and with a different perspective, I look at it and say is really that one practice going to make that much difference? If it is going to make that much difference, we probably didn't do a great job in the days leading up to it. You know, kids can enjoy their snow day, and so I've mellowed a lot in that since I was overly intense when I was young as a coach, and now I think I look at things way differently and with a, you know, with a maybe broader vision about what's really important. I also think the fun factor is way more important than I probably used to think it was. If it's not a fun experience for kids, then we screwed up. We did something wrong. Sports should be fun.
Speaker 3:And you can do all the hard work and all the physical challenges and that can be fun. I used to tell my teams all the time.
Speaker 1:There's all different kinds of fun in sports. You can have fun playing volleyball at your family picnic, family reunion, but it's not going to be the same kind of fun that you're going to get when you've worked super hard with your teammates to a common committed to a common goal and you play your absolute best against the best team that you'll play. That's the ultimate fun in my mind. You know, in athletics so there's all different kinds of fun and some kids aren't built for one or the other. But still it's the job of the coach, I think, to make it a positive experience, to figure out how to find each athlete where they are.
Speaker 3:Speaking of fun, you have four kids that went on to play both high school and collegiate sports, so you never stopped coaching. Can you share with us because there's a lot of success that your kids had what was it like for you just to be a parent in sports? A lot of parents will listen to this podcast. What was it like just for you to have those kids play those sports, have that success and kind of enjoy that experience?
Speaker 1:It was super awesome, a joy of our lives. I think this is the first fall in many years my wife and I said we are not following one of our kids to a sporting event. My youngest, graduated from Northern last year, played soccer there in Northern Michigan, and so we don't have a team to follow this fall. So it feels a little bit empty. It's kind of weird because we've done nothing but that. Our social life was following our kids and hanging out with the parents of their friends and teammates, and so I do miss that. I miss it a lot of their friends and teammates, and so I do miss that. I miss it a lot.
Speaker 1:But I think as a parent, one of the things that I really had to learn was to bite my tongue, especially in the car ride home or in the time afterwards. I was used to watching games as a coach and I always thought I had lots of things that I could say to my kids that would help, and I think sometimes I did. But the things I think I was able to help them with and my wife, who was also a college athlete, was able to help them with were really more around kind of mental toughness, emotional resiliency. I think we were able to help our kids in those respects more than in terms of technical things about how they actually played a game.
Speaker 1:I think the other thing for me is as my kids were playing sports in their high school experience, I was their high school principal at the school where they played athletics and I really had to distance myself. I love now I love standing down on the sidelines and watch a game, but when my son played football I never once stepped foot on the sidelines. I sat in the stands with a group of parents, right in the middle of everybody and just was a parent and I think my kids always appreciated that. I always tried to keep that separation as much as I could. It's really hard to do that.
Speaker 3:I think it's super hard. I mean, even I just remember, with my kids playing sports, being in the car driving home, and you start instructing them on every little thing when you're younger. With my older kids I stopped, but I think a lot of us kind of had that same experience where hey got to do this, you got to do this, Especially when your kids are playing the sports you played.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what's hilarious is. You know, I don't know if you've had this experience with your own kids, but after a game the coach will stand and talk to them for 20 minutes or 30 minutes after the game, and then we'll get in the car and we're like well, what did coach say? I'm like nothing.
Speaker 1:They talked to you for 30 minutes and said nothing. The lesson was, my kids just didn't want to rehash it again Later on maybe later in the day or the next day they'd say oh yeah, coach said so and so and so it just wasn't the right time. I think that's an important lesson for us.
Speaker 3:I think it's a very important lesson, because even things we do in life, if something doesn't go our way, we have a.
Speaker 4:We don't want to talk about it for the next 30 minutes yeah, yeah, I was fortunate enough to coach my son, dakota, and coaching him in football I definitely had to bite my tongue in a lot of car rides, but I was reading a lot of like tony dungy stuff back then where it's, like you know, three positives for every negative. It was always his philosophy, because I was at some work.
Speaker 4:It was because I was so hyper competitive. I was coaching high school football at the time. I had played, I had been exposed to the game for so long and I mean ultimately too, it's I was a reflection of the way that my dad talked to me on car rides home. There was always a critique, you know, but that that's just the way that my dad talked to me on car rides home.
Speaker 3:there was always a critique, you know, but that that's just the way it was yeah, it's a tough thing as a parent, I think, just to figure out what you're supposed to do in that moment, you know, because there's always be supportive and listen would be what I would say and for me, all my kids were way better athletes than I ever hoped I could be, so they, they always had something on me. You got to experience really the pinnacle of being an athletic parent with your daughter Kennedy. Can you tell us her story?
Speaker 1:Yeah, kennedy played soccer at Grand Valley State University, which is a fantastic program, and we had an awesome experience there. She had an awesome experience and we did as parents. Twice they won the national championship while she was there and so her freshman year she assisted on the national championship, winning goal in overtime, and then her junior year, she actually scored the first goal of the game and then she scored the golden goal and the goal in double overtime um to win the national championship and my wife and I would still say one of the greatest days of our lives.
Speaker 4:I can only imagine the sense of pride that you would have.
Speaker 1:Well, it's not just pride, I mean, although that is a big deal, but seeing your kid achieve something that they've worked so hard to get to and finally had the ultimate prize at the end, which just just doesn't happen very much, right it was. It was really special. And I said my youngest daughter won a state championship in high school and it was the same kind of feeling, you know. But the national championship, that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1:My son played division one football and he still says Kennedy gets the, kennedy gets the nod as the top athlete because she, because of the those accomplishments you know, yeah, I mean, Rodney, you had a little bit of taste of that last year.
Speaker 4:We went in the district basketball championship. You're watching your son out there and I remember seeing you on the court and just you were talking to me about like, oh my gosh, this really happened.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was. You know, as a dad, I have four kids three daughters and one son. So this is my boy, this is the little guy that I've played basketball with in the basement and the driveway doing all that stuff, and all you're wishing for is that they can have a moment, and they got one, and it was probably the most fulfilling for me as a parent as ever could be. There's a picture. There's so many great content creators nowadays. There was a great content creator there at night that took a ton of photos of our team, but he has a picture of Hudson holding the district trophy and there's guys around him with hands on their shoulder. They're half laughing, half smiling. I got that picture up in my office. Now it's framed. It'll be there forever, but it's a nice moment. As a parent, you don't always get that. I had an older daughter that lost her high school career to a knee injury. Yeah, and that's the opposite, right.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's a good point. You know there's highs and lows and everything. My son lost a state championship game in football, had an undefeated football season his senior year and lost 10 to 7 in the state championship game. He was a defensive end. I think they gave up 48 yards of offense the whole game and still lost and that was the lowest of the low. I mean it wasn't because he got to this pinnacle game, but I mean that was such a huge disappointment. I think an important piece is it doesn't matter whether it's athletics or it's anything else with us as parents. My son when he was a little kid he played Charlie and Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, just on a whim. He tried out for this play through school and he gets the lead role and we're like, oh crap.
Speaker 4:We don't know anything. The lead role.
Speaker 1:We don't know anything about this about acting about this thing. And yeah, and they played at the McComb Center which seats I don't know, 1, which is seats I don't know a thousand people and their audiences were mostly like elementary kids. They would bus in, like these whole thing, but they'd have like a thousand people in the audience and that was super cool. You know, it doesn't matter what it is, see your kid get to perform and and participate in and have fun and do something that's really rewarding to them is is super special.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and when it doesn't go your way, it's still okay.
Speaker 4:Absolutely it's. It's one of those lessons, though, right Like you, you pour work into something and you're just, you're just trying to get to whatever it is. The top level that I could push myself towards. That's what I'm always trying to work towards. That Right Like that was my, my mentality. And going to Robert Morris is I had D2 and D3 offers but I was like I need to see if I can push myself. I see a kid and this is just something that popped into my brain, but the kid, trinidad Chambliss, who's starting at quarterback at Ole Miss right now. I coached him at Forest Hills Northern. He went to Ferris because that's where his offer was, but after the season they had last year, he wanted to see where he could get and see if he could compete in that level. And man alive, is he competing at that level right now?
Speaker 1:You know what? That being said, as somebody who coached at community college in division two, a lot of times I saw kids and parents get really wrapped up in the idea of can I play division one? And the reality was a lot of times the mid-level Division I programs couldn't have won our conference in Division II. And the bigger reality is it really doesn't matter If you're competing, you're having fun, you're getting an opportunity to do the thing that you love to do, you're going to have a great experience. And I think there's way too much of that kind of concern. You know, I love the idea of competing at the highest level that you can reach, but I also think people get really wrapped up into that for sure.
Speaker 3:this is a great place for facilities or programs. You're here at an incredible time with the football lacse soccer stadium complex that was finished just a few years ago. We have the pool coming into play. Tim, if you go back to when you were a young high school kid I mean, I went my high school had 98 students, Guess what. We didn't have A lot, but this day and age, now, there's so much available. There's three old guys in this room right now. We know what it was like in the 80s, 90s for you. You're still in your 40s, Bill. That's right, but isn't it something? The world that we're in with SportsTown?
Speaker 1:It's amazing really. Our facilities are absolutely incredible and they're going to reach an even new level with the construction of the pool and the community center, but they're really, really special. I do worry a little bit that there's a sort of arms race around facilities. I think the most important thing is do we offer the opportunities that we want to offer? Do our facilities create a situation that will allow kids to do the things they want to do and have the space to do them and have the time to do them? And if we've accomplished that, then I think that's what we're looking for.
Speaker 1:I also think it's important that kids have things they can be proud of, and I think they feel better, they treat things better when they feel proud of it. But the reality is to your point, rodney, when I was in high school, I never thought our facilities weren't great. They were fine. There are nothing compared to the facilities that we have now. As long as I was able to do the stuff that I wanted to do and I had opportunity and access to it, then I felt good, and I think that's true of our kids now.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and we have a lot of other things that make us unique to West Ottawa, things like the Panther Fund and Panther Pathways. Can you share a little bit about what those programs have meant? I mean, you've really overseen the start and Panther Pathways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, panther Pathways is one of the things I'm most proud of in my career, of seeing a school district do so. When we started talking about it we were looking at the student athletes who made up our varsity teams. We said at the time the statistic was something like 67% of the kids making up our varsity teams came from three elementary schools in our district and we weren't getting a lot of participants as they got older, from kids from different schools and within the district. And we weren't getting a lot of participants as they got older, from kids from different schools and within the district. We said, man, we've got to do something about this because for a lot of these kids the barrier is they don't have access to a program that will lead to them being a varsity athlete someday, or they don't have exposure to a program that will lead to them being in the play or playing an instrument or being a computer programmer or whatever that little extra that maybe some people have. And so we created a program and it started with funding that we got through COVID dollars, through us or funding, and we created this program initially for fourth and fifth graders that would allow them to have competition with their friends at other schools. But the big thing that we did and I think to this day is the most important piece is we found a way to provide transportation to those kids and that made it accessible to everybody.
Speaker 1:Without transportation, then there were a lot of kids that weren't going to be able to participate.
Speaker 1:It was such a valuable thing.
Speaker 1:We had elementary schools where we'd have a basketball game, a fourth or fifth grade girls basketball game, and we had families who just didn't, as a common rule, come to school events fill the gym.
Speaker 1:I mean, I remember being at Pine Creek when there wasn't an empty seat anywhere in the gym for a basketball game when Pine Creek was playing Woodside and I'm like this is exactly what we were hoping for. We've got parents involved, we've got kids involved in a productive, fun, happy way and these kids are getting an experience that exposed them to something and they can find if maybe they have a passion for it, whatever it is. So we offer programs and computer programming and STEM stuff. We have Minecraft, where kids could come in and play that game, and we have athletics, obviously, and when our asset dollars ran out, we said this is an important enough program. We're going to continue funding it through our general fund and we've been able to do that and we said we're going to prioritize it because literally thousands of kids are going to be able to participate in this program over the years.
Speaker 3:I'm just so thankful as a parent. I'm not an administrator here. You guys both are but your ability to pay attention to detail and finding a particular variable that flips it. Hey, what's the one variable here that's preventing this from happening? To dive in and find it and switch it. It's fantastic.
Speaker 1:Thanks.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I've always said you know, people will ask you know what's West Ottawa like? And there are a lot of school districts that talk the talk. West Ottawa walks the walk Like we're going to identify an issue, a problem, and we're going to get a bunch of smart people in a room together and figure out a way to work around it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's really really amazing.
Speaker 1:And we're super fortunate that we have people here who are all in for kids. Bill is a great example in the athletic department and the athletic office, but throughout the entire district people are here for kids and at every level, and not just our teaching staff and our administrative staff, but our support staff of people who work at the ticket booth, the people who clean our buildings, who work on the building and grounds. They take a lot of pride in it. They're in it for kids and I just I don't know that I've ever encountered anybody at West Ottawa who wasn't positive and wasn't excited about what they were doing for for young people. People ask me all the time what is like to move to this district and I said it's like this big school that has a small school feel. You feel like you know everybody, like it's a small town, it's a small city and it's a small school, but it's really not.
Speaker 3:this is big environment with a lot of different people we talked the other day on the phone and we laughed as you're turning 60 or you are 60 I already am but you get a lot of perspective right when we get we get these older ages. You just mentioned one, but I was going to ask you have you had any moments in the last few years at west ottawa where an athletic moment came and you thought, yeah, this is what it's supposed to look like?
Speaker 2:You just mentioned.
Speaker 3:Pine Creek. That game there, but what other?
Speaker 1:I remember the first home game we had in the stadium. Mr Tolgeski's son, cole, threw a touchdown pass in the end zone. We won that game in our first home game in the stadium and the excitement of everybody. But I just happened to be down in the field and filming that play and I sent it to. Todd said hey, you know, I just got this video of Cole and I just know how much that would have felt to me as a parent and what that moment was like for that kid.
Speaker 1:And just think, man, you know the pageantry of a game at West Ottawa, with the band, with the cheerleaders, with the crowd, with that full stadium. It's like this is high school athletics. It's like a slice of Americana. This is like a night that kids will never forget. It was awesome Just this year in our first home game, seeing the middle school group have the white noise and having like a couple hundred, two, three hundred middle school kids in the stands.
Speaker 1:The other end of the stands we've got the black hole with our high school student section. We've got 38 or 39 cheerleaders I don't know how many Bill 120 kids in the marching band. All these kids playing football. We've got the youth football kids coming out into the field at halftime and you just look around and you're like man, this is so cool, this is what it's supposed to be. All these is so cool, this is what it's supposed to be. You know, these, all these people belong to something bigger than us and it's all super fun. They all have their own role in it, but they're all part of this really amazing event. This is a really cool thing and I think that's super special.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was at the gym this morning and a couple of folks from power strength are coming over because they trained some of our athletes. They trained some of the grand Haven athletes. And I asked Caleb? I said you've never been to West Ottawa Stadium for a football game yet, have you? And he goes no, I'm like, okay, I'm going to talk to you next week and I'll get your perspective, because I think we just do it. It's different than anywhere else you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my kids came to the last. Three of my four kids were able to come to the last game and we went all the way up top in the stadium so they could see what it looked like. And they all brought their significant others who were also athletes at different levels, and just they were just blown away like I've never seen anything like this and I said, yeah, west ottawa does it right yeah, and the band is just killing it at halftime.
Speaker 3:Really too.
Speaker 1:Christian oviak and what he's done with the marching band, and they were already great under mike hammond this is a phenomenal band leader, but Chris has brought a whole new dimension and they're super exciting and it's really cool.
Speaker 3:And you know what's really great too? I get to see some background stuff, how well those two work together, like they're working great together. They're taking on different roles and they're just both positive, moving forward. I jumped out of line a little bit, so I'm actually going to go back here a little bit here With you. You know, in the administrative position that you're in, you have a very full plate. But one thing that you still do, because this lifelong commitment to athletics is still there you referee still. When did you start putting on the zebra stripes and getting involved in that?
Speaker 1:Well, I've refereed for years. I actually started as the first job I ever had. As a young kid I'm 13, maybe or 14 years old I started umpiring in the community. I had baseball in my neighborhood so I started doing it then and we used to get paid cash and a little envelope. I don't remember six or seven bucks a game for umpiring a little involved, but I don't remember six or seven bucks a game for umpiring.
Speaker 1:But I did high school sports for years. I did boys and girls basketball, volleyball, baseball and softball. So I did those for a long time. Really enjoyed doing basketball. Now my knees are kind of shot so I don't know that I would. My wife says I can't run enough to do basketball anymore but I still am doing college volleyball, something I wanted to go back to when I was done coaching and my kids were done playing. So that's allowed me to stay around college athletics. So you know I think I'm going to be out at Southwestern Michigan college this weekend reffing community college tournament out there. I was at Bethel university in Indiana on Saturday reffing the women's volleyball match and just having a great time and being around athletes and kids and stuff just makes me happy.
Speaker 3:What would a lifetime of not being athletics look like for you, like how big a part of athletics is in your life and what does it mean to you?
Speaker 1:I mean it's interwoven and I think, in our family and me and who I am, and I just always had a passion for it. You know, it's like I said, growing up my parents were not particularly, you know, into athletics. It just, for whatever reason, I became super interested in it, not just as a participant but as a fan, somebody who reads about it. I just love the kind of experience that comes to it. If it wasn't athletics, it'd be something else. I guess you know my brother's a professional musician and he went a whole different way and he's passionate about that. So it's, it's just for me, it's who I am. I love sports. Like last night, I live and die with the lions. The game was a blast that we came out on top.
Speaker 3:He's a man to bring. Had to bring up the line. Oh geez.
Speaker 1:I forgot who they played Shoot. Um yeah, that was Baltimore.
Speaker 3:Wasn who they played shoot. Um, yeah, that was baltimore, wasn't sorry, that's probably. I was surprised he walked in with a smile on his face today after I knew that they lost last night.
Speaker 4:Yeah, rodney knows, if the ravens lose on sunday, just leaves me alone on sunday afternoon you know what I love in sports.
Speaker 1:I love the little stories within the story you know that there's always all these different little dramas that play out in an athletic contest, and when the Ravens lose it's drama.
Speaker 3:Trust me.
Speaker 1:No, it totally is. You know, that's like like playoff baseball coming up, all the little mini stories within the story, you know, the one-on-one, a batter against a pitcher, and the mind games and the things that happen, and all those things are super compelling to me and I get that. They interests, you know, and I love being at all of our events. I love going to our band concerts. I love seeing our marching band. I told my kids at the game last week we were like, yeah, come for the game, but the highlight's going to be the marching band at halftime, because they have never seen a marching band like ours, you know, at the high school level. So all those things are super joyful to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and this is a sports podcast, so obviously we're putting athletics. But I mean, it's true, there's so many other things that can be interwoven in your life that give you the same thing. It's just so important to have something to do and still, today, you're still on the pickleball court. In tennis, pickleball is the great equalizer. You can still hit the pickleball court and it's like this last bastion of athleticism.
Speaker 3:You can not be able to move. You can be obese. Whatever the case may be, if your hand eye is still there, you can still play. But you still play the game, right Left hand pickleball.
Speaker 1:I like playing pickleball. I play some tennis still and still play volleyball now and then you still play volleyball. I can't really jump anymore but I still still pepper and goof around and play with my son's an open level beach player in Chicago so I love going to watch him play and doing stuff with him.
Speaker 4:but he's got to be a beast at the net. He's a pretty good athlete.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so he's. He didn't pick up really playing competitive volleyball till the last few years, but he's learned quickly. He's a good athlete. So, yeah, yeah, that stuff's fun. I love doing stuff to be active. I paddleboard. We're outside doing stuff all the time.
Speaker 3:Let's finish up with two kind of big questions. One how do you see the future of high school athletics changing, maybe during the next five years, about five to ten? I know the last five years here there's been massive changes. What do you guys see maybe the next five to ten years? Here there's been massive changes. What?
Speaker 4:do you guys see, maybe the next five to ten man? I just I think at some point nil is going to come into the equation. I, I really do, and that's just. Tim was there yesterday as we were over hearing from mark you'll and the mhsaa. I, it's inevitable. I don't know that it looks the same as it does at the collegiate level, but I I don't see us going another five to 10 years in that not being a reality at the high school.
Speaker 1:I hate where we are in college athletics right now. I think it's one of those weird things.
Speaker 1:There was a problem and instead of correcting it incrementally, we swung the pendulum completely 180 degrees the other direction and created a whole new problem or a new set of problems. So I hope that that doesn't happen in high school. One of the things I think that's going to be interesting in the next five to ten years in high school athletics is participation and whether or not we're able to keep kids into high school sports. With the proliferation of youth sports in other areas we're already seeing battles, fighting. You know academy programs and soccer and you know outside programs and other sports.
Speaker 1:Whether we can hold on to kids in the high school experience I think was going to be really an interesting story. I hope that we can because I think it's an experience that's so unique. You know my kids played high level soccer, but you go play a high level ECNL or academy game and there's maybe 25 or 30 parents that are watching instead of going and playing in front of several hundred of your friends. It's a completely different experience. And so my kids, that my daughters played high level soccer.
Speaker 1:They loved playing high school soccer because they got to play in front of their friends and with their friends that they went to school with every day, and that was a different experience. I hope that we're able to hang on to that. You know, in the face of this proliferation of a lot of other sports, I hope that we're able to hold on to the multi-sport athlete. I really believe in it. I think it makes kids better and more well-rounded. We had a great speaker at a previous school.
Speaker 1:Kate Markgraf played on our Olympic soccer team. She went to Notre Dame and she said when she was in high school she went to a high school that required her to play two sports. It was required you had to be two sports. So she played soccer, but then she was like, in her words, she thought it was asinine that she had to play another sport. She played volleyball and she said the ironic thing is is that now, as an adult, she still plays in a women's volleyball league and doesn't ever play soccer anymore because she got burned out on it and that experience of being required to play another sport actually gave her a lifelong avocation. I hope that we're able to hang on to that. So I hope we're able to hang on to high school participation and even grow it, and I hope we're able to hang on to the multi-sport athlete.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I would say in the last two to three years our participation has gone up considerably. You know, and you look at our soccer program, we're one of six schools in West Michigan that offer three levels of soccer at the boys level and the girls in the spring, and we have 20 plus kids at each of those levels. So there's opportunities here I think that may not exist in other places, just because we're able to get that participation number up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Any final thoughts that you'd like to. You know, maybe a message you'd like to share with parents, students, athletes just a final thought on, maybe athletics at our school.
Speaker 1:I think they're super fortunate to have the opportunities they have here to have an athletic director like Bill, who is always looking for ways to get more kids involved, whether I think one of the cool things that Bill's done is even the kids that aren't involved necessarily on a team but who are involved in running the video scoreboard or they're working on a broadcast side or they're doing other things. We found a cool way to keep them involved and I tell the story. I told the story to my kids. I hope you'll indulge me this last thing Dan Dickerson, the Tigers baseball announcer. I heard him speak to a group of kids years ago and he told a great school. He thought he wanted to be a professional baseball player but realized pretty quickly he wasn't going to be good enough to be a professional baseball player. He was a marginal high school player but his high school coach had a connection with the Tigers and got him a job in the summertime being a bat boy for the Tigers and he had this awesome experience gets to be in the clubhouse. He's around the players Did that for two summers and then one summer the second summer he's talking to a guy who worked in the ticket booth and said hey, you ought to come up here and work in the ticket booth. We could pay you and you could make some money. And so he goes up and he works in the ticket booth. While he's up there he had opportunity with the vp of ticketing to introduce him to ernie harwell, who was a legendary radio broadcaster for the tigers. He introduces him to ernie harwell and ernie harwell says you should come sit up in the booth with me. And he goes up and he gets to sit up there where Ernie Harwell broadcasts a game and he's like I decided right then and there I'm going to be a baseball announcer.
Speaker 1:He went to school, became a radio broadcaster, ended up getting a job with the Tigers, working his way back up through the organization, and now he's, you know, the voice of Tiger baseball and he can go to every game home and away and of Tiger baseball and you can go to every game home and away. And his message to the kids was that no matter what you love to do, you can figure out a way to make a living at it. So he loved baseball. It wasn't going to be good enough to be a player, but he figured out a way to make baseball his life, and so I've told my own kids that I'd love to tell our kids that whatever you love to do, even if you don't have a natural ability in that area, you can find a way to be around it your whole life if you want to, and I think that's a cool thing that we offer at West.
Speaker 3:Ottawa. Tim Bearden, thanks so much for coming in. Thanks for sharing your experience as an athlete and a coach and a dad, and now your perspective as our superintendent really appreciate it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thanks so much. I know the calendar is busy.
Speaker 1:Hey, this was awesome. Thanks for having me guys.
Speaker 3:Appreciate you All, right. Well, thanks so much. Remember everybody, we are West Ottawa, we are community, we are each other and take care, we'll see you next time, thank you.
