By Joanna Chadwick
During the MAYB Summer Kickoff, Maize South girls coach Ben Hamilton and Wichita Northwest boys coach Andy Hill coached their sons together to a second-place finish at Wichita Hoops.
But winning isn’t the main goal.
“As a coach, I’ve seen so many people get burned out,” said Hamilton, who coached his 8-year-old son, Decker. “My biggest emphasis is keeping it fun and keeping it about fundamentals. Be competitive as possible, but also try not to put winning over everything.
“I’ve seen so many things. We see. so many kids get ruined too early where they don’t have a chance to develop and develop a love for the game.
“We lost in the championship game, and I don’t really care. Our kids, it wasn’t the end of the world. We don’t overly emphasize it.”
There were other area coaches working with their own kids.
Andover Central boys assistant Thomas Bland coached his young son.
Derby girls coach Bryan Chadwick coached two of his high school-aged sons.
For Bland, he appreciates the little moments with his sons, Thomas III and Theodore.
“On the way to and from practices and games,” he said. “Waiting for the next game. Weekend tournaments in a different city. It’s not just sports you’re talking — you’re getting to know them inside and out and talk about everything else.”
Both boys played on the same team for the first time at the Summer Kickoff.
Hamilton also coaches with his brother, Ty, who is the Maize Middle School athletic director.
Their dad, Dennis, was the longtime coach at Dodge City.
“I have a lot of respect for my dad,” Hamilton said. “I always knew I could go to the gym; the opportunity was there. It was never, ‘you have to do this.’ I’d go into the driveway or he’d take us to the gym. It had to be something you wanted on your own. He wanted to make sure we enjoyed it, not grow up too fast.”
Hamilton focuses on teaching man defense, ballhandling and shooting fundamentals.
“If our kids leave practice miserable at 8 years old, we failed,” he said.
It’s a perspective he keeps at the high school level, too, where girls basketball numbers are low in many areas.
“We try to make it fun,” said Hamilton, who also has two young daughters. “But we tell our kids all the time — ‘have fun, but what else is fun is winning.’ All of them are competitors and they want to have success, so we try to tie it in there.
“There’s so many pressures from the outside, maybe from parents, maybe from another coach or a trainer, that I’ve changed my philosophy. I try to be there to teach, to comfort, to find out what their goals are and get them to where they want to be.”
Bland appreciates the giving back aspect of coaching where he’s helping young people grow and succeed.
“So that feeling is even more intensified when it’s your own child,” he said. “When my son does something that we worked on and gets a bucket from it and he gives me that look like, ‘hey, it worked,’ that’s one of the best feelings ever.”
