Coppell Girls Basketball Booster Club president Katherine Campbell joined the booster club for her love of basketball and her daughter, sophomore guard Avery Campbell. As a booster parent, her responsibilities range from working concessions to planning different events for the team. The work may seem simple, but behind the scenes, parent boosters sacrifice their time to support their athletes and programs to see them grow and succeed.
How do you balance booster club responsibilities with personal and family life?
It is a sacrifice, but I love it. I do it because I feel this time is so short with these girls, and you can feel it slipping away every minute of the day. It is getting shorter and shorter, and so this is what I want to do with my extra time. I will do this over other things that I could be doing because I want to. I want to be there. I want to support them. And I love it. So it’s not a hard choice for me.
What are some of the primary booster club responsibilities?
During fall off season, we had a welcome to the program pool party at one of the other booster mom’s houses, and whether you are a freshman all the way up to varsity, everybody was invited, including their parents. When the season started, we did an event at Top Golf for all of the teams to get together and hang out outside of basketball. I had no idea when I joined the booster club that the majority of what we would do would be around food, but it is a huge part of taking care of our coaches and our girls is to make sure that they’re fed well.
Why is parent involvement, especially in high school athletics?
It shows your kids that you’re behind them, 100%, including giving your time when you could be doing something else. It shows your love for your kids. There are so many different ways to get involved. It shows the girls that you are willing to give all of yourself for what they are trying to accomplish. Because what they do isn’t easy either. They have schoolwork, club and school sports and are trying to balance all of that. It is important to show that we care and we support them in everything that they do.
What is the most rewarding part about being a booster parent?
I love getting to watch my daughter, Avery, in her environment with her friends being goofy, not just when they are on the court to see them when they are relaxed and having fun with each other. It is a really cool experience to be able to see that side of the girls.
What do you think are some of the challenges booster clubs face during the season?
Having people volunteer for concessions because we ask and ask, and usually the same families that tend to do it over and over again. The hardest thing is to make sure that other parents know that we need help especially with concessions, because that is where we make a lot of the money that we use to do all the fun stuff throughout the season.
What are your hopes for the future of the basketball program and the booster program?
I would like to see more parents volunteering. I know that sometimes it seems there is not something for people to do if they’re not on the board itself, but that is not true. The board itself is organizing events where everybody else needs to step in and help with. One of the things that was different this year is the boys and the girls booster clubs partnered on a lot of what we did. They are in the same sport and it’s really cool to have that collaboration between the two programs.
What do you hope the athletes and program take away from the booster club’s support?
I hope everybody loves it and feels supported this year. I know that my personal goal was to make sure that each one of the girls and the coaches felt like we cared and we were trying to do everything we could to support them and make this a memorable experience. I hope that came across and that is how they felt. It is a real honor to be a part of the program. I love the girls’ basketball program all the way from the top to the bottom and it is very much an honor to be a part of it.
What is one of your favorite memories from supporting the team?
One of my favorite ones was when the varsity girls went to support Coppell Middle School East and North middle schools in the same tournament. The girls got up and they went weightlifting at 7 a.m. on purpose so they could go to the 9 a.m. games. I went and grabbed donuts and kolaches to meet them at the game, and was able to sit down with the girls and hear them talk and watch them support the younger girls coming up into this program. It was just a really unique and totally unexpectedly fun morning of supporting the middle school girls that are hopefully going to be coming up to the program in the next couple of years.
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