The Boys and Girls Club of Seymour has always been involved in youth sports.
From organizing basketball games to running flag football to giving the youngest soccer players a place to learn how to play.
Now, the club is stepping up and taking on a much bigger role by hiring a full-time athletic director to oversee youth sports programs in the community.
Brandon Terrell, 20, a Seymour High School graduate and former Owls baseball player, has been selected to be in charge of youth sports programming in Seymour. Right now, that includes football, basketball and baseball/softball.
He and club Director Ryon Wheeler hope to be able to expand those offerings in the future to include other opportunities such as soccer and running and even more nontraditional sports like archery and disk golf.
“Sports are youth development opportunities. It’s an opportunity to teach kids life skills,” Wheeler said. “And that’s what the Boys and Girls Club does. It’s what we’re good at. It’s what we’ve done for 74 years.”
Three years ago, community leaders including then Mayor Craig Luedeman, the Seymour Parks and Recreation Department and multiple high school coaches came together with Wheeler to discuss the potential need to combine youth sports under one umbrella.
It was decided the Boys and Girls Club could possibly best serve that goal.
“Everything traditionally has kind of been run by the high school coaches so everything was separate,” Wheeler said.
The programs also heavily relied on volunteers who may not have the time or resources to do everything, Wheeler added.
At first, the club just helped with team signups, but the conversations continued. And then in 2019, when SHS Varsity Basketball Coach Tyler Phillips left, the club took over the youth basketball program.
“Basketball numbers went up quite a bit,” Wheeler said.
Seeing the club’s success with basketball, the football and baseball coaches agreed to jump on board.
“We are in the process of signing agreements to use this year as a partnership year,” Wheeler said. “We don’t know what it’s going to look like in the end, but basically it boils down to getting more kids playing. We want more kids playing sports, because we know it’s good for them.”
Already, the club is planning to bring back the flag football program this fall along with a 7-on-7 football program.
“At the club we help kids grow to be productive, responsible and caring citizens and now we can do that through sports,” Wheeler said.
During the first year, Terrell will spend time learning each sport program’s processes, procedures and systems and work to make them more efficient, Wheeler added.
Things like ordering uniforms, decreasing insurance costs, streamlining background checks for volunteers and providing a centralized location for signups.
Terrell will work closely with the high school coaches and the different youth league boards to create the vision for youth sports in Seymour.
Beginning in 2022, everything from expenses to income will run through the club.
Long term, the goal is to make Seymour athletics even better than it is by developing youths’ interests, skills and talents early on, Wheeler said.
“We want kids to come through and wear the purple and white and love the Seymour Owls,” he added.
Another big way the Boys and Girls Club wants to help is by raising funds to bridge the gap for kids who may not be able to afford to play youth sports.
“If we have someone who is paid to do all that, we can add more sports camps, we can add more scholarships,” he said. “We can go to a donor one time and ask them to sponsor baseball, football and basketball at the Boys and Girls Club instead of them being asked over and over from different groups.”
The club also has national partnerships with the NBA, MLB and the NFL that could provide grant opportunities to the Seymour club to fund local sports opportunities for all youth.
“If the Boys and Girls Club is not involved, those grants are not available,” Wheeler said. “Why would we not work together to try to go get dollars for our kids?”
Terrell’s position is being paid for by the club with support from the different youth sports leagues. There was a lot of interest in the position.
“We had around 40 applicants,” Wheeler said.
Besides his involvement in Seymour baseball, Terrell has a strong family connection to the club as his mother, Patti, used to be the program director there. His father, Brian, is a longtime member of the Seymour Youth Baseball League board and used to be on the club board.
Part of what made Terrell a good fit for the position is his knowledge and understanding of the climate of Seymour athletics and that he doesn’t have any kind of hidden agenda, Wheeler said.
“He played Seymour sports, so he knows who a lot of the coaches are. He doesn’t have kids that will be in the program, and he has an opportunity to grow and shape this into what it will be,” Wheeler said. “You can truly tell he just wants to see Seymour athletics succeed and see kids succeed.”
Already, numbers are up for baseball and that’s something Terrell is proud of, he said. Almost 200 kids signed up for baseball last week. Now, they are close to 500 total kids signed up to play.
“In the last two weeks, the numbers have skyrocketed,” Terrell said.
The goal is to be over 500.
There were more than 200 kids signed up playing basketball this past season which was an increase from when the club first took over the program.
“As long as we can get more kids to show up, more kids to play, not only will our numbers go up, but the high school’s numbers will go up too,” Terrell said.
And that leads to improved grades and better attendance because kids want to be able to play, he added.
More important than becoming the next Division I college or even professional athlete, however, is learning the important life lessons sports can teach including hard work, teamwork and dedication.
Terrell sees it as his job to try to get kids more interested in playing sports than in staying home to play video games or be on the computer.
A lot of times, that’s just talking one on one with kids and finding out who they are and what they like.
“Not every kid is going to be good at basketball or baseball,” Terrell said. “We want to find what they are good at and make it available to them, whether it’s ultimate Frisbee or soccer or if it is video games, maybe we can offer an E-sports program.”
Terrell is currently a sophomore at Indiana University Southeast studying marketing and communications.
During the interview process, Wheeler had applicants put together a league schedule and Terrell’s stood out, Wheeler said.
“He was the only person who actually put a marketing piece to it,” he said. “I think that’s one of his skills that will help set us apart with this, with how we communicate and get information out to families easier.”
Terrell said he is excited about what the future holds for Seymour sports.
“I think it will be fun to see what we can do working together as a team,” he said.