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I spoke to Coach Wells the day after the boys volleyball team lost a heart-breaking match in the state tournament. “They had an off day and they underestimated their opponent,” says Wells. Previously, the team came in second in the North Coast Section (NCS) tournament and qualified to move on to the state competition where they won their first match and hoped to move through the field to have a shot at the championship. But this loss put a stop to their championship hopes.
The thrill of sports at any level is the chance for either team to win or lose. Without the heartbreak of unexpected losses we could never experience the exhilaration of an underdog win.
This year’s Berean sports teams have experienced both great success and heartbreaking disappointment. For most coaches and students, they were happy to just have a more normal playing season after 18 months of working around a global pandemic. The fall season had several teams qualify to compete in the NCS tournament: girls volleyball, football, and a handful of cross country runners all competed in NCS playoffs. And Berean claimed the second place all-state girls tennis player with freshman, Vivian Gallaway.
In the winter season, the girls basketball team advanced to the second round of the NCS playoff tournament, six wrestlers competed in the post season, and the boys soccer team competed in the NCS playoffs. This spring, the boys baseball team have held a record that put them in the number one spot in their division, and boys volleyball made it to the championship game of the NCS playoffs and went on to the state tournament. It’s been a great year for Berean athletes.
For Coach Wells, this year has been exciting in other ways. Over the last two years he has been working to build a foundation of spiritual growth among coaches and student athletes at Berean. As successful as the teams have been this year, it’s not the wins and tournament appearances that matter most to Wells. What matters to him are the qualities that the students and coaches are demonstrating on and off the field. Wells is proud to say that through the leadership of their coaches, Berean athletes are finishing the year with a stronger spiritual base than they had before participating in school sports. That is what he is most proud of.
When he began working as the Athletic Director at Berean, Wells worked to instill a sense of spiritual mission in the way the coaches worked with their teams. Each coach needed to have a purpose statement for their team. It was a difficult sell at first, but over time coaches embraced the idea. At the parent meetings that launched each new season this year, Wells put coaches on the spot. He called each coach up in front of the parents and asked them to talk about their Transformational Purpose Statement.
“This year, every coach was able to speak about their purpose statement off the top of their head and from their heart,” says Wells with a gleam of pride in his voice. Each coach is guided by a transformational purpose that they have embraced as part of their team’s DNA.
One of the ways that Wells implemented this new focus with the teams was the newly created Captain’s Workshop. Each team in every new sports season nominates one or more captains who are required to attend two workshops led by Coach Wells. The captains learn what their roles as leaders need to be for their teams. They have a job description and they are sent back to their team with instructions on how to set team goals and create a mission statement. This approach has led to more unified, purpose-driven teams at Berean.
Wells is already looking forward to starting next year. He plans to make improvements to the Captain’s Workshop and has more innovative ways to deepen the athletic experience at Berean and ground it further in spiritual development.