Mentoring: Pass It On

I like this story as it gives me a reason to smile and believe in the goodness of people. Nobody makes it alone. And we are all mentors to people even when we don't know it.

I have run summer volleyball and basketball camps for the last 34 years. In 2020, like it did many small businesses, the Covid pandemic almost broke us. We could not find any school in the Branson Missouri area that would let us in their buildings, until the small district of Blue Eye decided, with social distancing practices, that we could hold camp there. I will never forget that.

When we finished that summer, a parent approached me and said, “thank you, my daughter really needed this.” I told her to thank those who run the Blue Eye schools.

Fountain Lake is a high school in north Arkansas. Their girls’ volleyball team has attended our Branson camp for the past 15 years.  Last week, the Lady Cobras won the Arkansas Class 3 State volleyball championship, with a four-game victory over Mansfield, also a longtime participant in our Branson camp.

The week before, Coach Tina Moore’s club defeated Conway Christian (yet another Branson camp participant) 3–2 in a dramatic comeback to win the South Regional title. This victory marked her 601^st win as head volleyball coach at Fountain Lake, making Coach Moore the winningest coach in any sport at the school.

In a social media post the Fountain Lake Athletics officials praised her “dedication, leadership, and commitment to generations of Lady Cobras” for building a legacy “beyond the volleyball court.”

It is the perfect end to a 30-year coaching career. “When this group of seniors were eighth graders,” Coach Moore shared. “I told them that I would get them through high school and it would be my 30th year and I was going to go out with them. I am now officially retired as a volleyball coach.  We have been close over the years, but we could never close out with a state title. Finally winning the state championship was not my deciding factor to retire, it was already planned, but it’s sure is a nice way to go out.”

Wide-eyed 8-year-olds need guidance from people living the journey now. Stories are always written about athletic lessons learned on the field. But do teenage athletes, in small towns, realize the influence they have? Read on.

Karolyn Turner is an eight-year-old third grader.  Her dad, Kyle is the former boys’ basketball coach and school athletic director, and the current high school principal of Blue Eye High School. Her mother Kayla is a Title 1 reading teacher. Kyle and Kayla supervise the Blue Eye gyms for our summer camps.

Kyle and Kayla’s daughter  Karolyn is the unofficial Branson cheerleader for the Fountain Lake volleyball team. “Four years ago,” Coach Moore recalled, “at the Branson camp she was in the gym lobby between matches, probably about four years old, and the girls were doing a dance that they had choreographed, and they asked her if she wanted to jump in with them. She’s a very outgoing kid and our girls just took to her immediately. She became one of us and then started sitting on the bench with us during matches and she has done it every year since. Our kids will always do something special for our trip to Branson - like make a hat or make a shirt - and we always bring one for Karolyn. Two years ago (at camp) when we went to the Dolly Parton Stampede, her and her mother went with us.  Blue Eye has been a perfect arrangement for us, and we look forward each year to going down to Blue Eye.”

Mother and daughter both attended the quarterfinal and the semifinal games of this year’s state tournament at Quitman and then drove to Hot Springs for the state championship game last Saturday.

“It was so special to have them there,” shared Coach Moore. “I consider Karolyn as part of the team, and I consider Kyle and Kaylon to be good friends and we’re definitely going to stay in touch.”

 Kyle Turner, as a professional educator, knows the value of mentoring. As a father, he appreciates how the Fountain Lake volleyball team has made his young daughter feel special. “Four years ago, a girl named Faith asked Karolyn to join into their warmup dance to ‘Church Clap.’ To take the time to do that for a little girl is just such a nice and giving gesture.”

Turner notes that the team has made a concerted yearly effort to stay connected to Carolyn in maintaining the relationship. Without that clarity of intent, mentoring cannot take root. Such gracious giving of time from a group of teenagers is learned behavior. “This has had a lasting impact on my daughter,” he says, with a father’s nod of thanks to Coach Moore for creating a culture of caring.

It has been said that the day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit. There is a little girl in Blue Eye, MO who will not conclude her hoped for high school volleyball career for another decade, but the influence of a now ready to graduate group from Fountain Lake, AR will propel her journey.

The best way to thank a mentor is to pay it forward, by becoming a mentor yourself. The state championship trophy sitting in the Fountain Lake Arkansas High School trophy case is a nice retirement gift to Coach Moore, but a better tribute to her 30 years of labor is a star eyed eight year old girl in Blue Eye Missouri.