Episode 5: Sports and Character Development

In this episode, we’ll hear from our coaches about how participation in sports teaches valuable life skills, such as teamwork, discipline, and leadership. 

Transcript

Meaghan Paramore (00:02.222)
you

Meaghan Paramore (00:15.872)
Welcome to It Means More, the stories behind Dothan City Schools, where we explore the extraordinary dedication and innovation happening in our classrooms and communities every day. I'm Megan Dorsey, Public Relations Officer for Dothan City Schools, and today we're diving into the world of high school sports and the incredible role coaches play

is shaping the minds and lives of our young athletes. In this episode, we'll hear from our coaches and how participation in sports teaches valuable life skills such as teamwork, discipline, and leadership. Today, I'm joined by Jed Kennedy of the Dothan Wolves football team. A visionary leader and dedicated mentor, Coach Kennedy has transformed our program with his powerful mantra, Me, You, Us, Team.

This phrase embodies the spirit of unity and collaboration that he instills in our athletes, reminding them that the individual's success is intertwined with the strength of the collective. Under his guidance, the Wolves are not just a team, they are a family, committed to pushing each other to new heights on and off of the field. We also have with us Haley Williams, a dedicated coach with extensive experience in both girls' soccer and flag football.

With a passion for empowering young athletes, Coach Williams has cultivated a dynamic and inclusive environment where players can develop their skills, build confidence, and learn the value of teamwork. And we also have with us Jeremy Bynum, the boys basketball coach at Dota High School. With a wealth of experience and a deep commitment to his players, Coach Bynum has been instrumental in fostering both athletic talent and personal growth among his team. Thank you guys for joining us. Thank you guys for joining us today.

Thank you for having me. Yep, absolutely. I'm happy to be here. Thanks, Megan. I'll start out with the first question. Coaches, can you share a personal story about how sports have shaped your own life skills, such as teamwork or discipline? yeah, I'll take that one for sure. I just think playing sports all my life has allowed me to understand the commitment it is to other people around me and that it's more important to let what I do impact others in a positive manner. Coming up playing sports, I think it taught me discipline.

Meaghan Paramore (02:29.656)
to be selfless and I think that has transitioned over to my life as a family man. know, every day we wake up, I have to put my kid first, my wife second, you know, we just kind of learn how to grow and kind of operate in a selfless manner. Yeah, just to go off what he said, just growing up my whole life.

Playing sports, especially in college, there was a huge emphasis on the importance of teamwork. There's not a lot of individual sports. Definitely more sports are geared towards a team environment. Your success is gonna depend on the success of your teammates. And so you really have to learn to rely on them and to trust them and to respect them in order for your individual goals as well as teamwork goals or team goals to...

to be accomplished. So that commitment to something bigger than you is one of the biggest things I learned. You know, as I look back, I was a three sport athlete in high school way back. I played baseball, football and basketball, and they all had their own unique dynamic when it came to being on a team. But they also all had the same common framework in those as being a team. And I think to me, the biggest one is being unselfish and putting other people first. And if you

You know, look at the great teams. think one of the great quotes is, know, you know, average teams are coaches led and great teams are player led and teams that really encompass that, regardless of what sport it is, are really the sports that are really ultra successful. So let me ask you guys, you all came from these backgrounds of being the student athletes. And I want to lead into this question. What is the structure? Now we talk about your personal story, but what is the structure?

to build the best student athlete that we could have in our school system? What are the key tenets for that? Well, I'll go first. I think the first thing that to me is important is it's called student athlete because they're students first. obviously getting an education in high school is the most important thing, but I'm a believer that one of the greatest ways to be a great student is to be a great student athlete. And I think that being an athlete helps you with so many skills that help you in the classroom.

Meaghan Paramore (04:38.426)
If you can't pass your classwork, you can't be eligible on the field. you know, I just think that there's so many parallels between the classroom and being on a team. And I think that they do a great job of fostering each other. And I think research shows that students that are involved in extracurricular activities, and obviously now we're talking about sports, but have a higher grade point average. They have a higher graduation rate. They have higher success of getting to college just by being involved.

in activities and like I said, I know, like I said, that's why, you know, I believe it's student athletes and that they can grit, they can both help each other through things. Yeah, I would like to pick it back off coach. I think it's, you know, very essential that, you know, the kids have good time management. I know I think it's very easy and just today's time that we get so like both guarded on the sports side of it. But in reality, we all know, you if you got a kid who can't do it in the classroom.

most likely they're not gonna be able to be successful, whether on the football field, the basketball court, or the soccer field. So I think it's, know, having the student understand that, hey, it all piggybacks off each other. You know, if you can't act right here, then how can we count on you on the court or anything like that, so. You're building leaders. For sure. This is leadership development. Yeah, that last thing you said is actually what I tell mine at our beginning of the year meeting is,

If I can't trust you to do what you're supposed to do in the classroom, to hold yourself accountable to whatever those rules are, doing what you're supposed to do as far as staying on top of your work, being a leader in the classroom, how can I expect you to lead on the field? How can I rely on you when it's a big pressure moment in a game if I know that you're not doing what you're supposed to do off the field? And time management skills are huge. You learn the value of hard work, even in the classroom.

You work hard on your assignments, you work hard on taking your notes, writing things down, studying. Then those are the same skills in athletics. You learn the value of hard work in both situations. So being able to rely on them in the classroom is huge. Well, let me ask you this and then I'll probably, I'll pass it back on, but I think what everybody is saying is, you know,

Meaghan Paramore (06:57.998)
We're building these leaders, we're doing this leadership development, we're teaching them to be great in the classroom, and we're trying to make sure we incorporate these lessons. So how do you incorporate lessons about teamwork and leadership into your coaching practices? Well, I think first of all, I think in 2024 for kids, it's really hard to lead. It's a different era than what I played in, even with social media. It's just...

I think it's just really hard for a majority of kids to get up in front of their teammates and lead. I just, with social media and everything, it's just really hard to do. And I think, you our big thing is we try to put our kids in as many situations as we can that they have to lead. And, you know, this year we did something different for the first, this is your 17 for me as a head coach. We've always had player led, or I should say player voted on team captains. I'm a believer that the kids choose who the leaders are on your team.

We don't, we could say this kid should be the leader, but I think sometimes just life kind of makes those people. But this year I kind of went with the thing where I had different kids lead, be captains for each game and kind of be the leaders for the week to put kids in a situation that they maybe haven't been to. Another thing we do in our program, call it Motivational Monday, but we basically take about 10 minutes every Monday during the season and talk about, you know, some sort of thing in life and.

situations and how we could get ourselves through those. And I just think the more situations you can put kids in through and talk them through that when they're finally put into that situation. And the reality is 99 % of these situations in their life are going to happen outside of sports. Sports is just what I think all of us would agree on is an unbelievable opportunity to work on those skills and develop those skills and develop those teammates. just was talking to our, you know, we'll play our last football game on Friday night. And I told our kids,

This is probably one of the last large organization of people you will be on as a team in your life outside of when you go to work. And talked about kind of all the things that we've learned as being a part of a team. you know, get emotional thinking about that just with, you know, kind of off the topic. But what I look at in 2024, what the sacrifices that kids make to be a part of a team. Ten years ago, kids didn't have a lot of options to do other things. They

Meaghan Paramore (09:23.724)
you'll grow up saying, want to be part of a team. Well, now there's social medias, there's jobs, there's vehicles, there's just so many things that kids can do. when I grew up, everybody dreamed of playing for the sport for their high school. Well, now I don't know if that's really the case anymore. So I think our job as coaches is to provide an environment for kids that they want to...

be involved in and make that expression. I took the job actually at Dolphin. I talked with Dr. Cohen, Dr. Noble. That's what the word I kept using was experience. We need to provide an experience for these kids that they want to be involved. In my case, it was football at Dolphin High, but really all of us provide an experience that outweighs all the other choices or other things that they can be doing. I love that. I love that. Coach Williams, what do you have? I do a lot of similar things to what Coach Kennedy was saying. We have

one day a week during conditioning, usually after our three mile run where we get together and we have quotes that I've found, you know, through various books that I've read, movie quotes, anything that I feel just kind of hits on a certain quality. And we have them read it, I have the girls read it, they read it out loud, and then we just get different opinions on it. And you know, it's interesting to see how...

these high school kids can come up with the different things that they get from it. And a lot of times you see different perspectives and you start to get to see kind of how these kids think and what's important to them. And it's one of our team building activities and then some other things. do have our seniors lead a lot of our stuff. I think our seniors are probably some of our most important.

players on our team because one, they've usually been around the longest. You know, with soccer, it's really rare that you have somebody come in their senior year and make the soccer team. It happens, but a lot of times they've been in the program for four or five years. They've done this and so they know what it takes over the years. They have that experience. And so I rely on them a lot. They lead our stretches. They're one of the only ones that can, if we're having a bad practice, they can kind of call a timeout and

Meaghan Paramore (11:40.024)
kind of refocus people. It's rare that that happens, but I have had some seniors step up over the past and do that if they see that maybe the effort is not there for that day. And I just, I really rely on that senior group to step up. And it's also who our captains come from are our seniors. We'll have them vote at the beginning of the season, kind of like what Coach Jed has done in the past. And then I actually have another...

captain's band that rotates between all the other seniors. So every senior has an opportunity to step up and be a leader for at least one game during the season. That's awesome. Coach, why don't you? I think one of the things we've done that's been very influential for us is we do FCA meetings on Thursday. And I think, know, Pastor Alex came in with us and we've kind of done a lot of breakout sessions. And we've kind of put our kids in situations where you have to talk, you have to step up and lead, and we put them in

uncomfortable situations where they have to talk about things that's bigger than themselves, you know. And what you see is a lot of times you have very, very smart kids, but a lot of kids, they're looking around and they don't want to be the one to get up there and mess up and things like that. But I believe like, I'm sure coaches, both coaches programs are now, the more you've gotten into it, the more comfortable your players get around and they're able to speak up and talk about certain things. So for us, you know,

I think just getting those kids in situations where they have to talk about things that's going on. I've tried to do a better job of giving them a visual. There's all kinds of stuff on YouTube. So we go on YouTube, we find colleges, they have like culture meetings and stuff like that. So I let my players watch that and I kind of, you we break out sessions and I kind of say, okay, what can we take away from that? know, how's our program compared to that? You know, that leadership or even more, you know, can you go be in that culture? You know?

Is that who you are or you somebody else? And I think kids are such visual learners that when I show them that, they get more comfortable speaking on things and, hey, that happens with us. They see it and it's like, okay, it's normal. I can speak on it. So I just think putting them in situations where they have to talk in a room where it's just us, they don't feel as embarrassed, but just giving them situations where they just basically just have to be uncomfortable and talk to each other.

Meaghan Paramore (13:59.554)
You're creating comfort with these students to be themselves, but also it's okay to mess up, and it's okay to be a leader, and it's okay to lead your peers. That's awesome. For sure. You kind of grow the most when you're uncomfortable, you know, in a game, at least for us, you know, and I'm sure all the coaches here are the same way.

the more uncomfortable you can make them in practice, the harder you can make it, the more you can challenge them. That's where they grow the most, is when they're uncomfortable. And a lot of kids are uncomfortable talking in front of each other. And so these discussions, I think, allow these kids to become comfortable being uncomfortable. And then they grow the most from that. I love the growth. That's really important. We'll kind of take another question here to lead us in some discussion. What are some common challenges athletes face when you're trying to develop these skills?

And how do you help them overcome these obstacles? I'll start with that one. I think we all have the same issues when it comes to this. It's just not willing to get out of their comfort zone. Trust. We get a bunch of kids, when they come into our program, they struggle to trust us. They struggle to open up to us and things like that. But I think for me, that's our biggest obstacle, of course, to get over is to get them to open up and be themselves and understand that it's OK to fail.

You know, we don't criticize for failing. We just want you to be yourself and give us a chance to help you. I think with us, just speaking from a female perspective, girls are so afraid to make mistakes. They are so afraid to make a mistake in a game and it costs them. I think girls are a little more willing to blame themselves before blaming others. Not that it doesn't happen, because that is definitely a common...

a common trait among people in general, but I think girls will often look into themselves first and be so afraid to make a mistake that they don't play the way that they should play in a game because they're afraid to make a mistake. And so with me, some of the biggest things is getting them like Coach Bynum said to trust, but not just trust in their teammates, but trust in themselves, trust in your ability. You've spent all this time working on your skills and...

Meaghan Paramore (16:16.8)
you have to be able to trust that in a game. have to be able to trust your instinct and trust that you're going to make the right play. And if you're not, it's okay. mean, failure is going to happen. It is inevitable that you will fail at some point, but what's going to happen, what I'm going to look at most is how do you respond to it? I love that. So Coach Kennedy, mean, how do you handle the challenges our students face, you know, and the pressure that everyone has to be also, you know, to excel in the classroom as well as

on the field, you do you deal with those challenges? Well, I think, you know, a couple of things. First, I'll talk about I think the big thing is I think as coaches, and this was a hard thing for me to accept is that, you know, so right now we have 85 kids in our program 10 through 12. For all 85 of those kids, football is not their most important thing in their life. They love to play. They love to be a part of a team. They love to play at Dalton High School. But, you know, football is my favorite thing. You know, football might be this kid's favorite thing, but

It doesn't mean that they can't be a valued member of your team and it doesn't have to be the favorite thing in their life. And I think, you know, like I said, I've been fortunate to be doing this a long time and it took me probably a long time to understand that. So I think it's, it's supporting kids and other things. It's understanding that they have other things that are, that are really, really important too, but yet helping them, you know, foster an environment that they can be great and be involved in both things. So I think that's the one thing.

I think what's very unique about football is, like I said, we have 85 kids. you know, when you take other sports that have, you know, 10 to 15 people, they're just around each other all the time. We have a lot of kids that the only time they're around each other is when they come to practice. And, you know, we did a simple thing, you know, which I started last year was, you know, I had a kid come up and he was telling me about a kid on our team and he didn't know his name. So we had a thing and I'm sitting there thinking, there's 85 kids in here.

So we had a thing where we would have each day, we would have a kid go and we'd have every kid stand up. And it was if they could name every kid on our team and a kid would go through and he'd miss four. And what was crazy was it became a really unique competition, our team, and everybody got to know everybody. And I talked to our kids about, you know, like, I mean, I know everybody on the team, but that's kind of part of my job being the head coach. But how can we talk about, we love each other, we care each other. You know, we want to go to battle each other. And gosh, to me, he's just the kid over there who plays linebacker.

Meaghan Paramore (18:43.03)
You know, so those types of things. I just think, you know, anytime that you can, you know, my big thing when you talk about having kids want to be involved is, is I want kid number 85 in our program to have the same exact experience as kid number one. The best player in your program is always going to have a great experience. It's just, it's, it's, it's the law of life, right? He's probably going to get his name in the paper. He's probably going have the best stats. He's probably going to start. He's probably going to be one the strongest in the weight room. He's probably going to be a leader. That's just the reality of life. But, but my job is.

Can we make sure that number 85 in our program has the same exact experience and feels just as much value as being in our program as player number one? And I love that. And I think that, you know, to me that's, you know, really the special thing that, you know, I was telling somebody the other day, we have, if you take our JV and our JV and freshman team and add them together, we have more kids that do not start in our program that do start. And.

That's just a hard thing for people to swallow. mean, that it's, you know, it's a lot of hours, it's a lot of time, it's a lot of work, and it may not always equal to a lot of time on a Friday night in front of people when they're watching. And it goes back to me about experience. If you can provide an environment where people still find value in being involved, even though they're putting value into more than just being on the court or being on the field. And I think...

Um, fortunately we've been able to do that and you know, but like we talked about before in 2024, that's a lot harder to do than it was in 2020. And what it was in 2020, 2009, it's just harder. And I just think as coaches, that's, I tell y'all coach, young coach all the time. That's, you know, that's why if you don't have a relationship driven program, it's really, really hard because you have to have a way to connect with all those kids when everybody right now wants immediate gratification.

In sports, what's immediate gravitation? Winning and being on the court. And I look back to when I first got into this thing back in the early 2000s as a head coach, people just loved to be on a team. They didn't care if they got out there. It's not like that anymore. There's social media and those types of things. So I think if you can continue to divide a program like you talk about where life skills and parents, they go home to parents and parents say, this is why I want you involved in that program. And like I said, it's getting harder and harder.

Meaghan Paramore (21:08.142)
You know, I think that's our job as head coaches to make sure that that's the environment that we're fostering. And that's the, it's a, I tell, was telling the coach actually buying them. We're talking about, it's, it's harder to coach now than it was the coach five years ago. And it's a ton harder to coach now than it was the coach 20 years ago. And probably showing my age a little bit with that. But to me, the impact actually is probably greater now than what it was 20 years ago.

And that made me think, you know, you're giving, like you said, that the top player compared to number 85, you know, you're still giving them that validation that, you know, you're still an important member of this team. You're still a valuable member of this team. And a lot of our kids nowadays, they look for validation in social media. So if we can give that same validation to them,

in person as part of a team and as a leader and as a student, you know, instead of them looking for that validation on social media, it's so powerful and a way that we can start developing our ways away from the challenges of what social media is creating. So that's a thought that I was just thinking, I don't know if y'all agree because that social media. I tell people all the time, it's harder to parent now than it was, it's social media.

It's just, it's, live in a social media driven world. Like I said, it's, but I'm a believer and this might sound corny. Human connection is still the greatest power in any organization or any team. And if you can provide human connection with kids and make those things meaningful, it will, you know, obviously, you know, ultimately we all want to win. think people know I want to win more than anything, but if you're building valuable connections with kids and with people that, that ultimately is the greatest thing that will carry on.

You know, I hear coaches that talk, regardless of the sport, long when they're done, they're not going to talk about you won this game or you won that game. It's going to be talking about the relationships that were formed in this avenue for us, which is coaching. And to me, I think that's the greatest part of it. That is awesome. I really do appreciate you guys telling us a little bit about that. So let's talk a little bit more about, you know, you each have a different culture.

Meaghan Paramore (23:27.65)
for your team and your culture is also blending to the culture of the high school to the non-athletic students. So I wanted to start out with Coach Kennedy, you have the famous Me-You-Us team. Can you explain a little bit about that? Yeah, I think it kind of, as we talk about it, I've had that for a long time. Every year, this is your 17th for me as a head coach. I've done that all 17 years. And I think the purpose of it is understanding that

that yes, you are very, important as an individual and that that is not a small thing, but we need to get to the point that I can look at you as being more important than me, but us together is more important than any individual and team over everything. And I tell you that is, it is hard. We live in a, you know, what's in it for me society. And, you know, I just think that, you know, as long as, you know, we can just continue, you know, I was taught a long time ago, you got to find that one model.

and you got to hold onto it. And that's been ours. You know, I tell the kids, we just talked about the other day, if long after they're done, you know, if they can understand, you know, just like this, I'll explain to them, if they're, if them as a father, that is important, but you have to look at it as your kids are more important than you are. But together in a family is the most important thing. So just trying to carry that over. And again, it's, like I said, it's something we believe in. And, you know, I just love that it's, you know, spread amongst our kids. And, you know, when I get kids,

from the past couple of years here when they'll send a text and put M-Y-U-T at the end of it, I guess certainly hits my heartstrings. Coach Williams, Coach Bynum, what is your culture? I don't have a catchy thing like Coach does, which I love his. One thing we've done this year, probably since the summer, we've kind of tried to define our culture with this is how do we and how do we respond? And I think my kids are able to take that with them from the court.

to the classroom, when they go home and things like that. And always ask them, you you get a chance in every situation. How are you gonna act in a situation? How do you interact? And most important, how do you respond? So I think that's kind of what we're trying to build our culture around now is, you know, no matter what happens, you can control those three things. From our side of it, I'll let the seniors also pick a word every year that they will.

Meaghan Paramore (25:50.03)
you know, we'll put it on a bracelet and we'll give it to all the girls. And it's just a word that they want to focus on. You know, one year it may have been persistence. My first year, back when we were in Northview, it was relentless. And so they just pick a word. It could be a phrase that they want to kind of define their season. Something else that I like to do that actually my college coach did at AUM was we, you know, before every soccer game, we hold hands.

and I make them look at the person next to them, say their name, and tell them that they love them and that they give them all they got. And because I feel like if you're gonna look somebody in the eye, tell them you love them and tell them that you're gonna give them everything you got, that you are not gonna let that person down. And for however long I've done this, 10, 11 years, I've yet to have a girl not be able to look at somebody and say, I love you, I gave you all I got. And so that to me is just one of my favorite things is our pregame, just seeing them look at each other.

You know, they're girls, they're silly, they're gonna be laughing and giggling, but you can see that it does mean something to them. I'm not gonna let you down. I'm gonna go out there, I'm gonna give you everything that I have, and whatever happens, I can live with that. That's all I ask is their best effort. So that's just a couple of things that we do. We're talking about leadership and building that team culture, but sometimes we have to make sure that our students know that, you know,

this is, you you have to meet a objec- a- a- You have to meet an objective with every sport you're playing. So how do you teach discipline with your students? Well, I think to me, I'm old school that way. think, you know, I think, you know, number one is consistency. You know, and I think that, you know, I tell our kids this is, this is the expectation. If we don't meet this expectation, this is a consequence. And I think that

You know, this is the best way discipline has been described to me as always. There's not a person in the world who says, discipline good or bad? Everybody will say discipline is good. The thing people struggle with is being disciplined. So if discipline is a good thing, disciplined has to come along with that. And again, just, you know, we have really simple rules in our program. know, number one, comes with be here, you're going to be there, and we're going to act right.

Meaghan Paramore (28:10.796)
And I believe if we do those two things, you know, everything else will fall into place. And, you know, I think at times we all maybe get out of line with that, you know, including myself. And, you know, I think that's part of our thing is, you know, about, about growing people. And, you know, I just think that if, if people know what the consequence is for what the infraction is, you know, it's, you know, just kind of simple. So like a simple thing for us is if you miss practice, you don't play. And, you know, I think this year we've had.

one kid that's had to miss a game out of 85 kids and hundreds of opportunities to play. So I think to me, that's the discipline thing is having clear cut expectations and clear cut consequences if that, you know, it's, you know, and again, I think it comes back to that kind of one player one versus 80. If player one breaks the rule, it has to be the same consequence if player 85 breaks the rules. And if you have different rules for different players, that's kind of when the foundation starts to crack. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think that's,

is you have to be able to be very clear with what you expect of them. And then there's also very clear consequences. And with us, the first time a player gets in trouble, the whole team runs for it. And that usually fixes the issue. Nobody wants to run for something they didn't do. And so usually, we get done running and there's a lot of conversation of, better not do this again. You better not be...

you know, the one that's outside of the classroom, skipping or, you know, not doing your work, failing the class. You better not be the reason for that because I'm not running for you again. And, you know, you do see some of your leaders step up in that situation because they'll be the one that says, I'm not running for you again, even in the classroom. Cause I teach math, right? And coach Kennedy mentioned, you know, if you miss, if you miss practice, you're not going to play in that game. If you miss a day of math.

I mean, you are so far behind. And so it's so important for these students to see that also is that like, it's just important to be in the classroom, do what you're supposed to do, pay attention, because a lot of these subjects are going to build off of each other. Math builds off of the year before. It builds off the lesson before. You know, so these athletes and students in general are hopefully learning some of these...

Meaghan Paramore (30:32.972)
Skills is like, I've got to be there. I've got to pay attention. I've got to write stuff down. I've got to ask questions. I have to make sure I turn everything in on time because the worst thing you can do is get behind. And if you get behind in the classroom, you you'll not do well on the test. Or if you're an athlete, if you don't do well in class, you're not going to be able to play. And so just a lot of these skills just coincide with each other in sports and in the classroom. Yeah, just to kind of go off of Coach Wim said, you know, we're kind of

similar to her as, know, if one person gets in trouble, because we have a smaller group of kids, we've kind of, you know, everybody gets the discipline situation in that scenario. And I think what I've created now is, you know, kids are starting to police each other. You know, when they see a kid that's about to get in trouble or do something that's not supposed to do, they kind of handle it before I get to it, because they kind of know if I have to get to it, it's going to be coming down pretty tough. And, you know, I want to give these, both of them,

kudos because you know, I see both their players all the time and their kids don't want to get in trouble, you know, like they know what a trail of tears is. They don't want to do that kind of stuff. it just kind of like they said, set their expectations and stick to it. So you're building all these skills, you know, with a discipline, with the leadership. So what are the long-term effects do you see an athlete to have developed these skills through sports? Well, I think

The goal is, right, and I tell people all the time, when a kid gets done playing for you, you really don't know. You just hope that the skills that you taught them are there. It's when they're 25, 26 years old, they understand that, gosh, I have to get up and get to work. If I don't get up and go to work, I'm not gonna have a job. Just like if I didn't get up and go to practice, I'm not gonna get to play in the game. So I think it's really one of those things, not to maybe skirt around the question, but you really don't know.

And you just hope that you provide a, like I know the word culture that enforces things. Like to me, it's about time management. And as we know, the older we get, it seems like we have more things we have to manage. And that when they're a high school athlete, they're managing, you know, for a lot of our kids, they're managing school, they're managing a lot of them, multiple sports. And on top of that, a lot of our kids work. So they're managing those things. And, you know, so the fact that they get a chance to

Meaghan Paramore (32:54.87)
to do those things that when they're 16, 17 years old, that hopefully when they get to be 19, 20, 30, they've already have a skill set. So for me, it's all about providing and building a skill set that they can fall back on. that, you know, the first time they have a job when they're, when I talk about a job, a done with school, good paying job, that that's not the first time that they understand that if they don't come to work, they may not have a job. those types of things.

Same thing he said, I enjoy over the years, I'll have players that'll come back and watch our games. they give me these updates, you got players that have gone on to be doctors, that are policemen, that are teachers, nurses. And I just love seeing that growth from high school student athlete to what they're doing now.

You know, I'd like to think that my program played a role in, you know, some of the qualities that they have in their job and in their future now. So that's what I enjoy the most is seeing those kids, first of all, that they just enjoy coming back to watch us play. I just, I take a lot of pride in that. And then just seeing how they're doing, how they're progressing. That's my favorite thing.

Yeah, I agree. I think that's a scary part. Like you really just don't know. Because, you know, once they leave us, it may be a year, two years before you hear from them or see them. But when you see them, that's probably more important than any game they ever won for you just to see them doing good. Sometimes they come back with families and things like that. So I think, you know, that's the most important thing that we're laying the foundation for them and they're able to go off and be successful outside of sports, you know, because we all know.

At some point the ball's gonna stop, know, it stops with everybody. So just to look back and have kids go out and know whether they're going to be a doctor and getting a regular job, just able to function in the real world and not the kids we look up to see in the news or doing something that, you know, they shouldn't be doing. I love that. That was incredible when you said that to see them come back and that they're doing well, it means more than winning any game. At the end of the day, like that's an incredible thing to think about.

Meaghan Paramore (35:18.126)
And that really stuck out when you said that because you do want to see these students excel at what they're doing. Maybe they don't play ball, you know, in the next phase of their life, but they do well because of the discipline and the leadership skills and everything they've learned through the discipline of playing sports and the character development. So I think that really stuck out when you said that. I don't know if y'all feel the same way about that. Well, I think the reality is

95 % of kids when they step off the high school field or court is the last time they will play that sport in organized setting. That's just the reality of life. And I always say the same thing to our seniors after the last time we see them is, I'm not what I want to be, I'm not what I ought to be, but I'm better than what I used to be. So I hope that they're obviously the pinnacles, not them finishing their high school sport, but my goal is that they're a heck of a lot better because they did it.

You know, like Coach said, I one of my great moments this year was, you I had a kid that was over in Georgia. Didn't even know he was. He called me, said, Coach, I mean, he played for me in 2009. Drove over to watch the game and it's like showing me pictures of his kids. And, you know, he came in after where he goes like, Coach, this is exactly how we did things, you know, 17 years ago, which is, which is crazy. And, but like, like Coach, that's just my favorite thing is when you hear from kids, when you see kids and, you know, it's funny is.

You know, when I've coached probably thousands of kids, you know, it's like they literally remember from their era, every little thing that happened and, listening to them relive those moments is special. And I just think that's, you know, as we talked about this podcast and, you know, all the great things going on in Dolphin city. And it's easy to, you know, point out the, one or two negative things. It's, it's, easy to do that. There are so many great things going on. And, you know, I can promise you whether it's

being involved in fine arts and the band and the choir, being involved in Dolphin Tech or playing a sport, whether you start or not, you'll be better for doing that. And it's about the experience. And I think the great thing about us being a large high school in the Wiregrass is just the number of opportunities and different experiences that kids are offered and that kids can get involved in. I just told a parent the other day, the only excuse that a kid has for not being involved in something in Dolphin City Schools,

Meaghan Paramore (37:34.636)
is the fact that they didn't hear the announcements or didn't take the initiative to go be involved. you know, so as I think, you know, as people listen to that, you know, there is truly something for everybody. And I can promise you that, that whether it's, whether it's sports, all those other areas we talked about, get out and get involved. I can promise you that you will be better for that. And again, we've got a great district. We've got a lot of great things going on. Take advantage of those awesome opportunities.

So Coach Kennedy, I'm going let you take this question right here. Coaches, what advice would you give new coaches who want to emphasize life skills inside of their coaching as they enter this profession? For me, I would definitely tell them, you know, that should be your main focus. You know, kind of going off the last question, you know, your kids need to learn how to win in life before they can win in the sport. You know, I think the win, we all want to get into it about wins and losses and things like that.

But more importantly, you know, focus on the stuff outside of playing the sport, you know, the culture development, get involved in the FCA, those things that impact kids way more than making a jump shot or, you know, being in a weight room. Just kind of figure out who you are as a coach, what you believe in off of the basketball court for sure. And just kind of stick to those kinds of things. I would say to make sure you have established some core values and

and you stick to them and you hold your players to them. And then, know, Coach Kennedy, I know you said something a minute ago that just I love because it kind of hit on something that I spoke a lot about to my players last year, but it was, you know, being better now than you were then. And last year, something that was so big for us and it was, I was actually the one that picked this because it was just a personal choice. But we always talked about being better than yesterday.

Are you better today than you were yesterday? And I think as a new coach, that should be something that you also look at. It's just whether your team got a little better today than they were yesterday. And just beyond that never ending, I call it a never ending ascension, know, always moving up. And I think as long as new coaches...

Meaghan Paramore (39:54.796)
have that set of values and are focused on getting just even a little better, whether it's on the court, on the field, or even off the court. Maybe you taught them a new life skill that day. If they can just get a little better each day, I think that those are two big things that coaches can focus on. I think if I had to give advice, typically when you deal with young coaches, they got into the sport because they loved playing it. And I tell them that the skill and the schematics of sports, if that's what you worry about, you're

probably won't have a lot of longevity into it. But if you build a coaching philosophy around developing people and relationships and growth and all the other things, that the longevity and coaching will come with it. I was telling a coach the other day, talked about wanting to be a head coach and I love it. But I also said that X's and O's in philosophy are probably, or I should say X's and O's in schematics.

are probably the least amount of time I get to spend on the job. So that if you develop relationships and run a relationship driven kind of philosophy that you'll last a long time in this profession. Listen to the football coach that said something like, it's not about the X's and O's, but the Jimmy's and the Joe's or something like that. That's a big. So before we wrap up, let's go around the table. And I have one question I love to ask our guests. What does your work mean to you? We'll start with you.

Coach Biden. For me, you know, I have a thing I always tell people, you know, I want to do, I deal with a lot more kids than I deal with my own kid. You know, I spend more time with everybody else's kid than I spend with my own kid. And I kind of make a promise to myself, you know, I will never do anything intentionally to harm another person's child because I believe in karma. So for me, it's just about giving what I want my child to receive as she grows up and, you know, she decides to play sports or anything like that. I want to be invested.

so that she gets the return of what I'm giving out to other kids. For me, I don't have any kids or anything. To me, it means the world. And like I mentioned earlier, it means the world when you coach a kid for four, five, six years and they come back and they are just so excited to see you and show you.

Meaghan Paramore (42:11.918)
or tell you about all the success that they've had or what they're doing or what their plans are. I think just being able to spend that amount of time with kids, you really invest in them with as much time as you spend. You invest so much in who they are and their growth and then you don't see them again for a long time and you don't know what's gonna happen. So seeing a lot of positive come out of it to me just means more than any championship I hope to win one day.

You know, just look back, you know, my life, 90 % of my life has been somehow tied to education or coaching. come from a family of educators. I was always either playing sports to playing in college to coaching sports. And I just looked at those have been the, greatest experiences of my life and the chance to be involved and give that back to people. you know, if to have people 15 years from now say, you know, playing football here or playing football there was one of the greatest things that happened in my life or this experience. So I think.

To me, it's about creating experiences for people that I have been fortunate to have those unbelievable experiences that have helped shape my life. I know it's a cliche, but I literally have not worked a day in my life. I love what I do, and I love the chance that I get to coach this great sport and give back to kids what I think is...

So many people have poured into me and made me who I am today. Today we've seen how Dothan City Schools isn't just about education. It's about nurturing, inspiring, and preparing each student for a bright future. Every teacher, every staff member, every partnership, and every student adds to the rich tapestry that makes our school a place where it truly means more. We invite you all to get involved, whether it's by supporting our schools, sharing your own stories, or simply spreading the word about the incredible work happening here.

Please join us on our mission to make education and extracurriculars more meaningful for every student in DCS. Next time on It Means More, we'll explore the joys of teaching special education, connecting with students, the lessons learned from overcoming obstacles, and the meaningful relationships built along the way. Until then, remember that at Dothan City Schools, it always means more.