Saturday morning youth games and after-work practices hit differently for coaches and athletic directors across the country.
Not because they are rushing home to watch practice.
Because they are the practice.
Across college athletics, where the calendar never really stops and the next game, donor meeting, roster issue or recruiting weekend is always waiting, a handful of athletic directors and coaches still find time to take on one more title.
Dad.
Coach.
Sometimes both, because family comes first.
In Hawai‘i, Timmy Chang has a slightly different youth sports title.
According to Chang, his hiring process was also very different.
He was assigned.
“I was absolutely volun-told to coach,” Chang said with a smirk.
His wife, Sherry Chang, does not exactly dispute that.
“It’s true,” she said. “I do volun-tell him a lot. He knows when he leaves his football facility who the real head coach of our family is … me.”
Timmy Chang’s football résumé is not exactly built for anonymity. The former Hawai‘i quarterback became one of college football’s most prolific passers, played professionally across multiple leagues and returned home as Hawai‘i’s head football coach.
Now, he helps coach his five-year-old daughter Adriana’s flag football team. He also helped coach the 12-year-old Lion’s basketball team last offseason, trains his oldest daughter, Audri-Lee, as she starts at quarterback in high school girls flag football and works with London and Levi, their 10 and 8-year-old sons, in flag football and basketball.
For Sherry, none of that is surprising.
“As long as I’ve known him, he has always been a family-first guy,” she said. “That’s something I really love about him. He structures his schedule around our kids and family as much as he can and just wants to have as much of an imprint on raising our kids as he can. Even if that means having to coach his children’s sports teams.”
There is a practical side to the “volun-told” process.
Sherry knows Timmy’s schedule. She knows when the offseason gives him a little more room. And she knows when the family can fit one more team into the calendar.
But once Timmy Chang is done coaching, he is still coaching.
“Oh, we absolutely run our youth practices like the Hawai‘i football team,” Chang said, laughing. “I want it to be structured and have them coached the way they will be coached as they get older.”
Sherry sees it, too.
“He very much structures practices and game plans as if these 12-year-olds are DI college athletes,” she said. “It can get intense, but we can usually reel him in.”
The parents appreciate it, she said, because the kids learn. They improve quickly. They get real attention from someone who knows the game at a level most youth teams will never experience.
But there are also moments that remind everyone that these are still kids.
“All of our kids’ friends know if you come over to our house, there is a chance Uncle Timmy might start making you do a training session outside,” Sherry said.
For the 3-to-5-year-old flag football team, the Chang household has not exactly watered things down.
“He has them learning the angle of pursuit,” Sherry said, laughing. “Not just hunting the flags, but the hips. We even have extensive formations to include safeties. The ages range from 3 to 5 years old, so I’m sure you can imagine how it goes.”
It is funny because the image is almost impossible not to love: a Hawai‘i football legend teaching preschoolers defensive pursuit angles.
But it also gets to the heart of the story.
For people who spend their professional lives building programs, youth sports can be a reminder of where it all starts. It starts with small fields. With parents carrying chairs. With kids learning how to listen, share, compete, lose, get back up and try again.
But what about the spouse? The true balancing act. She knows what the job asks of a coach’s family. She also knows the work that often falls quietly on the spouse.
“I get asked this question a lot,” Sherry said. “I think as moms we do what we gotta do. Especially as a coach’s wife, more times than not, we are on our own, usually in a new city with no friends or family around, so we figure it out.”
She gives the kids plenty of credit.
“They are such great kids,” she said. “Because we have so many of them, they are helpful and self-sufficient, which makes our jobs much easier.”
Now, the big question for this “volun-told” coach: Is he any good at it?
“He’s a great youth coach,” Sherry said. “But he’s an even better college coach, so maybe stick to his day job, unless I need to volunteer him for another season.”
At North Alabama, Athletic Director Josh Looney coaches his daughter, Perry, on her recreational softball team, the 6U Diamond Queens, a group of kindergarten and first-grade players with their own small college athletics crossover.
Looney did not exactly launch his youth coaching career through a formal search process.
“I was ‘promoted’ from ball shagger after most of the previous year’s team aged into the next division,” Looney said. “The younger players wanted to stay together, most attend the same elementary school, and Perry asked if I would take the lead. How do I say no?”
College athletics often ask families to live by the athletic schedule. They feel the wins, losses, late nights and stress of the job even when they are not on the payroll. For Looney, coaching his daughter is not separate from the work. It is part of what he hopes the work represents.
“Families in college athletics live the highs and lows of our programs right alongside us,” Looney said. “Our kids see the commitment we pour into our university’s teams every day, and it matters that they also see us invest in their interests with the same energy.”
That mindset shows up across UNA’s department. Looney said staff members and coaches often help with their kids’ teams in some way, shape or form. In fact, he said, “they are encouraged” to spend time with family.
“We have a lot of young families in the department who stay involved in youth sports,” Looney said.
Of course, coaching youth sports as an athletic director also means the disguise does not last long.
“It doesn’t take much investigative work for people to figure it out,” Looney said.
Last season, the Diamond Queens wore jerseys with “Queens” across the front. When the league assigned them navy-and-white uniforms, they looked a little too similar to ASUN foe Queens University. UNA head softball coach Ashley Cozart quickly solved the branding issue.
“Coach Cozart made sure the entire coaching staff was outfitted in UNA Softball gear for every game, so there was no confusion about where the loyalty of coaches resided,” Looney said with a laugh.
Not every college coach goes looking for the whistle.
Evansville men’s basketball coach David Ragland always wanted to support his kids in sports, but he did not necessarily want the coaching title.
“They get coaching at home with me, especially in basketball,” Ragland said.
Then, a few games in a row, something strange happened.
His son Josh’s team somehow didn’t have any coaches show up on time. The parents seemed a little too ready for that to happen. The circumstances felt a little too organized. Before long, Ragland had been pulled from the fan section and into the role.
“I think I got played a little bit because all the coaches showed up later,” Ragland said, laughing. “It seemed like a concerted effort to get me from fan, parent to coach. We did run some great sets.”
The good news? They won both games.
The better news? Ragland is not falling for it again.
“I have officially retired,” he said. “I am onto their scheme.”
That is the part of youth sports that college coaches and athletic directors may understand better than almost anyone.
They spend their careers around elite athletes, scholarship decisions, transfer rules, television windows, conference movement, fundraising pressure and the business side of sports. Then they go home and coach kids who may care more about snacks, uniforms or whether their friend is on the same team.
In that space, the job changes.
The title gets smaller.
The impact might not.
The 6U softball team does not need a strategic plan. The five-year-old flag football team probably does not need safeties, even if Timmy Chang has them anyway. The elementary basketball team may not need an Evansville head coach drawing up sets, even if Ragland was temporarily tricked into doing it.
But kids need their parents to show up, regardless of the pressure waiting at the day job. For Looney, Chang, Ragland and countless others across the country, they do.