The gym smells like floor wax and rubber. It’s a Tuesday evening, and fourteen third-graders are running a layup drill with varying degrees of coordination. One kid dribbles with both hands at once. Another shoots from his hip like he’s throwing a bowling ball. My youngest is standing under the basket, staring at the ceiling.
I blow the whistle. “Reset. Let’s walk through it again.”
This is my life from November through February, four months each year, and it has been for over a decade. I coach youth basketball. One son per season, rotating through all four boys so each one gets a year with me on the sideline. The rotation started as a promise I made to myself and my wife when our first son was old enough to play, and I have kept it every year since.
The Promise That Forced the Question
When my wife and I were blessed with four boys, the math got real. Four kids in sports, school activities, and weekend tournaments. A business that needed my attention. A faith life that required more than Sunday mornings. Something was going to get squeezed.
I knew what it would be if I let it happen by default. I’d seen it in other families. The business grows, the calendar fills, and before you know it the kids are in high school. Then one day you realize you spent their childhood in a conference room.
I didn’t want to have that realization at fifty.
So I sat down and asked myself a hard question: what do I believe matters most? The answer came fast. My faith. My family. Those weren’t negotiable. Everything else had to fit around them, not the other way around.
Coaching became the vehicle for that conviction. I chose it because it meant I would be physically present, multiple times per week, doing something meaningful with my sons during the years when presence matters most.
How the Rotation Works
Four boys, each one a year apart in eligibility. I coach one son’s team per season, then rotate to the next the following year. That means every son gets me as his coach roughly every four years, and in the off-rotation years, I’m still in the bleachers. Still watching. Still available after the game to talk about what went well and what didn’t.
The logistics are harder than they sound. During coaching years, I’m at practice two or three evenings a week and games on Saturdays. That means meetings get rearranged and calls happen earlier in the day. Some work gets done at 5:30 in the morning instead of 5:30 in the evening.
I won’t pretend that’s easy. There are weeks when my inbox is overflowing and I’m running a passing drill at 6 PM instead of answering emails. There are Saturdays when I’m refereeing an argument about playing time while a work deadline sits in the back of my mind.
But I’ve never once regretted being in the gym instead of at my desk.
What Basketball Teaches (and What It Doesn’t)
I’m not coaching to produce Division I athletes. If one of my boys plays college ball someday, wonderful. My real motivation is different.
Basketball gives me a context to teach my sons things I care about more than jump shots. How to be part of something bigger than yourself. How to keep working when you’re tired and losing. How to respond when a referee makes a call you disagree with. How to encourage a teammate who just missed his fifth shot in a row.
These are conversations I could have at the dinner table, and we do have them there. But something different happens when a kid learns perseverance by playing through a bad quarter rather than hearing about it in the abstract. The lesson lands differently when it costs something.
My boys also see me in a role that isn’t “Dad at home” or “Dad at work.” They see me preparing, organizing, losing my patience and reining it back in, apologizing when I get too intense. They see me managing fifteen kids with fifteen different ability levels and fifteen different parents with fifteen different expectations. That’s its own kind of education.
Where Faith Fits
My faith is the foundation underneath all of this. I don’t coach basketball because a book told me to. I coach because I believe the years I have with my sons are a gift, and gifts carry responsibility.
When I pray about my priorities, the answer is consistent. Be present. Be intentional. Don’t let the urgent crowd out the important. Those convictions shape my calendar before any client meeting or business obligation does.
That doesn’t mean faith makes the scheduling easy. It means faith clarifies what I’m willing to sacrifice and what I’m not.
What My Boys See
I think about this a lot. What are my sons learning by watching me?
They see their dad leave work to be at practice. They see him choose the gym over the office on a regular basis. They don’t have to wonder where they rank on my list of priorities because the evidence is right there, three nights a week, in a sweaty gymnasium.
I hope they also see that you can run a business and still be present for your family. Those two things aren’t in permanent conflict. But making them coexist requires planning. It requires deciding, in advance and on purpose, what your life is going to look like rather than letting it get decided for you.
That’s the thing I keep coming back to. Intentional living sounds abstract until you attach it to something specific. For me, it’s attached to a whistle around my neck and a clipboard full of plays that a nine-year-old probably won’t remember.
But he’ll remember that his dad was there.
If you’re reading this and wondering whether your own priorities are getting the time they deserve, I’d encourage you to ask the question I asked myself years ago. What matters most? And does your calendar reflect the answer?
Sometimes showing up consistently for the people who matter most is the most important decision you can make.
Best,
Kurt
Disclosure: Kurt Van Dyken is the Co-Founder and Wealth Management Advisor of Lifeworks Advisors and has a material interest in the firm’s business. This content was not compensated separately; it reflects Kurt’s personal perspective as part of Lifeworks’ ongoing content program. His experience and views are his own and may not be representative of other clients’ experiences. Financial planning does not guarantee specific life outcomes.
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