- April 19, 2024
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While dozens of athletes couldn’t make that phone call to wish their biological dad a Happy Father’s Day, due to his absence, a lot of them were still able to celebrate the holiday and thank coaches for stepping up and being father figures.
This past weekend, Quindon Stokes, a recent Flagler Palm Coast graduate, texted FPC basketball coach Gary McDaniel to wish him a Happy Father’s Day and thanked him for everything.
“With my father being in prison most of my basketball career, I knew if I ever needed anything or someone to talk to, he would be there for me,” Stokes said. “He was more than a coach to me. He helped me understand things that my mom wouldn’t be able to teach me.”
“I love kids, and I work at the high-school level because I like to develop them,” McDaniel said. “It’s what I enjoy the most. Quindon has been with me for the past four years, and he’s become a part of my family.”
There is a passage in the Bible (Jeremiah 49:11) where God talks about being a father to the fatherless. As a former athlete and current sports writer, who speaks with hundreds of single-parent athletes, I see this scripture spontaneously come alive in sports more than any other arena.
My dad walked out on my mom when she needed him the most, with three young kids and me on the way. Growing up, we never called him on Father’s Day.
With an absent father, I sought that kind of relationship from my coaches. If I scored a touchdown or won a basketball game, I didn’t look for dad in the stands. I ran to the sidelines and got kudos from my “sports fathers.”
Like McDaniel, that’s why I want to coach high school sports someday. Especially for those athletes with absentee fathers; I want to be to them an example worth modeling a life after.
It is said that raising a child takes a village. Even with present fathers in a household, father figures are also necessary. Josh Stevens, a 2014 Seabreeze graduate, understood this, in light of John Abdo, his high school running backs coach, who influenced him.
“He was always real and honest about everything,” Stevens said. “We could come to him about anything, and he would pray with us.”
I will always admire the men who make Father’s Day special to kids, even when they’re not biological dads.
