For father-daughter duo Stephen and Jordan Vick, volleyball – a sport Stephen Vick has been coaching for 22 years and Jordan has been playing for over half as long – is a shared dream they have both been pursuing for as long as they can remember.
“I’ve been playing for him since I could touch a volleyball, basically,” senior volleyball player Jordan Vick shares with me, laughing as she recalls the memory. We are in Coach Vick’s office, seated around his desk as we chat. The Tropical Smoothie to-go bag and drink they came in with sits forgotten on the floor as the two give me their full attention.
Interim head volleyball coach Stephen Vick settles into his chair as he remembers his – and Jordan’s – first experience with the sport, ignoring Jordan’s teasing protests that “he tells everyone this story.”
“My first coaching job – and I didn’t know nothing about volleyball – I come in the gym, and I set her down in her car seat, and I take a volleyball and wedge it in her hands. And she sits there and kicks her legs and everything. And she’s just sitting there holding the volleyball in a car seat. So that was my first real experience with her and a volleyball.”
They laugh, coach and player poking fun at the other while I look on. Even before I walked in the door, it was clear the two have a natural camaraderie, both chatting effortlessly as they cleared a space for me to sit. Laughter comes frequently and easily to them, father and daughter clearly very comfortable with each other. I’m curious how this dynamic translates to the court.
“Oh, we can’t stand each other,” Coach Vick says, he and Jordan erupting into laughter before he can even finish his sentence. Somehow, I doubt the sincerity of his words. “No, but I feel like me and my wife have a really good relationship with all three of our children. And we’ve been blessed to be able to coach them in some capacity throughout their entire life.”
After over a decade of coaching and being coached, Coach and Jordan Vick have had ample time to find a rhythm for the two of them.
“It’s really great, because we’ve always said that we have such a great player-coach relationship,” Jordan says. “We’re good at compartmentalizing, is what we like to tell people.” That word – compartmentalizing – makes me curious. I ask her what she means by it.
“He’s not my dad in that scenario. And I like to say that he’ll be my biggest fan, but he will also yell at me the most in the gym, which is great because I think that’s how it should be,” Jordan says, Coach Vick nodding as she speaks. “He holds me to a very high standard and I really appreciate that. I don’t get to take any days off just because he is my dad, and I treat him like he’s just any other coach. When practice starts, it’s not like, ‘Hey, Dad, can we do this’ – it’s Coach through and through.”
But Coach Vick had to work hard to keep that title. When Jordan transferred schools in the eighth grade, the volleyball program at her new school was nonexistent. Coach Vick, having watched his daughter’s talent and potential since elementary school and not wanting to see it go to waste, took it upon himself to start an entirely new volleyball program for the middle school.
“That very year, I grabbed her and all of her friends and immediately created a sixth, seventh and eighth-grade program,” Coach Vick says, as casually as if he is describing the creation of a pot of coffee rather than an entire sports team. “And then, you know, a couple of months later, we chose the high school team. And then we won six straight district titles.”
Despite the success of his volleyball team at Camden Central High School, Coach Vick was more than happy to serve as interim coach here at Union. And he has been continuing that winning streak this year, leading the Lady Bulldogs to seven straight match victories and a 5-0 GSC start.
“This is cool,” Coach Vick says. “To get to be back and coach her senior year, and, you know, just to be together again in the sport that we love.”
Jordan was thrilled as well at the idea of her father coming to coach her senior year.
“I told the girls from the get-go, I was like, ‘You’re gonna love how he coaches,’ and it’s been really good transitioning back into him being my coach,” Jordan says. “The unknown was really scary. And so whenever he got the job it was kind of like a weight was lifted off of me. And so that’s probably, I’d say like, the top – just him being able to be my coach again.”
“But then a new weight landed on top of her,” Coach Vick says. “She wanted her dad to do good.”
Jordan and her father both laugh, the statement made funnier because of its ring of truth. Each really does want the other to succeed.
“Like, please don’t be terrible, because I really hyped you up,” Jordan says.
By the time I say goodbye, I’m buoyed by their optimistic, joyful attitudes. They are so incredibly supportive, each pushing the other to be the best version of themselves. Coach and player, father and daughter – off the court and on it, Coach and Jordan Vick make it their priority to encourage and highlight the other’s talent.
Theirs is not a story of forced dreams despite differing passions, but of mutual interests and shared goals, their love for volleyball deepening the bond of father and daughter.
“We kind of fell in love with the sport together,” Coach Vick says. “And so getting to come back here and be on the same court, and, you know, doing the thing that me and her both love, it’s a blessing.”
Photo by Steven Aldridge
Great job!!!!!!!