WOODBURY — After playing sports your whole life, it’s hard to leave it all behind. Many previous athletes take up coaching to still be involved in the sport they once played.
For Nonnewaug boys soccer and girls basketball coach Toby Denman, coaching has been his life for the past 24 years.
“I’ve just been living the life for so long, it’s what my life revolves around,” Denman says. “I’ve been coaching since 1999. I really enjoyed my experience of playing sports as a kid.”
The “life” that Denman has been living has proven that he and other Chiefs coaches have one major motivation for remaining on the sidelines.
“A big part of wanting to coach was helping to make sure that kids still have some of those same valuable experiences,” Denman said.
But Denman isn’t the only one wanting to help kids in their athletics. Chris York, a science teacher and girls tennis coach at Nonnewaug, decided to coach to provide a better environment for his athletes.
“I played tennis in high school and kinda didn’t have a great situation; practices were really unorganized and weren’t taken very seriously,” said York. “Most kids didn’t really get in shape. It was just kind of a joke honestly. So I was really motivated to provide something for the kids that was structured and organized so that they could actually get better and improve.”
Other Chiefs coaches coach for a different reason, like Nonnewaug track and field coach Arleigh Duff.
“I love teaching kids to learn new things and then watching them get really good,” Duff says. “I’ve been able to establish a really good program here that has won a lot that’s even sent some kids to college scholarships. I love training kids, everything about it.”
Duff also has had a significant role model that has helped him in his coaching now.
“My dad, he was my track coach and he was a basketball coach,” Duff said. “He basically taught me how to win, but he taught me losing was OK. [He taught me] that losing was part of the game and that’s why we played the game. So I learned really quickly that was just part of it and that losing was OK, cause as a kid I was a little competitive and he taught me all that.”
Adding on to Duff’s learning of accepting the wins and the losses, Denamn makes sure to teach his athletes this as well as how to enjoy experiences as a team.
“Being part of the team is a lot more about the experiences shared together than it is about winning and losing,” Denman said. “Winning and losing is obviously part of it, but some of the fun day-to-day things that happen at practice or on the bus make coaching an enjoyable experience.”
Along with sharing memorable experiences, girls soccer and boys tennis coach Nick Sheikh makes sure to teach athletes that being a good teammate is just as important as success.
“Teaching student athletes to be a good teammate is probably paramount to some of the athletics in itself, so if you can figure out how to be a good solid member of the team, some of the other stuff falls into place,” says Sheikh. “That is a big part of coaching, too, which carries over into basic life skills after leaving 5 Minortown [Road].”
