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Spanish Fork players and coaches celebrate after winning the 5A state championship series against Springville at Gail Miller Field in Provo on Friday, May 24, 2024.

Jared Lloyd, Daily Herald

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Spanish Fork players cheer from the dugout during the 5A state championship series against Springville at Gail Miller Field in Provo on Friday, May 24, 2024.

Jared Lloyd, Daily Herald

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Spanish Fork coaches celebrate after winning the 5A state championship series against Springville at Gail Miller Field in Provo on Friday, May 24, 2024.

Jared Lloyd, Daily Herald

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Spanish Fork players celebrate after winning the 5A state championship series against Springville at Gail Miller Field in Provo on Friday, May 24, 2024.

Jared Lloyd, Daily Herald

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Spanish Fork and Springville players line up on the field before the 5A state championship series at Gail Miller Field in Provo on Friday, May 24, 2024.

Jared Lloyd, Daily Herald

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High school coaches usually shouldn’t have to be parents. Ideally, those jobs should already be taken.

But coaches mirror parents in some ways as they work to mold their athletes to succeed.

To me, one of the biggest examples is that coaches — like parents — are ALWAYS teaching. Every second, every minute, every hour, every day.

Coaches spend a lot of time on the direct instructions regarding strategies, techniques, fundamentals and tactics, all of which are important in every sport.

But beyond that are the often more impactful lessons about leadership, teamwork, dealing with emotions and how to treat both your players and the opposition.

Many athletes learn those in the day-to-day interactions that occur during a season, but the best coaches also work to find other ways to emphasize them.

Spanish Fork head softball coach Natalie Jarvis, for example, chose to highlight two very important lessons for her Dons this year.

With the slang term “cooking” having become synonymous with entire performance, Spanish Fork chose to go with that as its theme this year and Jarvis saw an opportunity.

After the Dons won the state title on Friday, she talked about a conversation the team had before the finals.

“We gave out every kitchen tool you could think of,” Jarvis said. “They all got a different kitchen tool. We put a note on the tools that said that in a kitchen it takes many tools. To make a recipe, everybody has to bring a different tool to the party. You can’t just do it with a cup or a pot or a spatula.”

She explained that the analogy was that a successful team has to have everyone bring their own skills to their roles.

“We told them today that everybody needs take what they have to bring, whether it was on the bench or it was in left field or it was just as a hitter or as a speed-up runner,” Jarvis said. “They had to take their own tool that was going to help build our recipe for a state championship. They all just really bought into it and they did their part.”

I see that as being an excellent way of taking a concept the athletes had come up with (cooking) and turning it into a broader message about valuing different roles and perspectives.

Jarvis also had one more important message that tied in with the cooking theme.

“I write something every year on the inside of my visor, something that means something to me,” Jarvis said. “I wait until the state tournament to tell them. This year I wrote the word ‘enjoy.’ On every recipe my mom ever wrote, she wrote ‘enjoy’ at the bottom of it. My mom passed away in 2010 but that was her signature stamp on those recipes and it meant so much to me.”

That tie-in made the word perfect for the message to herself and her team.

“I said to them that the word enjoy is about looking around where we are and you enjoy this moment,” Jarvis said. “But for me enjoy is also about how we’re building this recipe. It’s a family recipe right here and at the end of it, we’re going to enjoy it. That is what my mom wanted from every recipe. So we are cooking, my mom was a great cook and I’m going to enjoy it all.”

I see so many players, coaches and fans who get so focused on the scoreboard or the foul count or the mundane details that the forget to enjoy what they have, both in terms of moments and relationships. I love how Jarvis emphasized that point with her team.

It’s one concept that I wish got more traction with everyone involved in high school sports. I see so many get caught up in the outcome or the officiating that they forget to enjoy themselves, either the experiences or the people.

I love seeing coaches who encourage that mindset and wish I saw it with more parents as well.

Playing hard should be fun.

Doing what is best for the team should be fun.

Supporting an athlete should be fun.

But too often if a coach or a parent or an athlete loses track of that, it ends up being very difficult for the others to remember it.

So when the 2024-25 high school sports season rolls around, please enjoy it — and do your best to help everyone else enjoy it as well.

And also take time to see what good lessons so many great high school coaches are teaching.