Though they coach different ages, levels, and often different sports, six Kingston coaches share one thing in common: connecting with athletes as humans first, before building them into elite competitors. In celebration of National Coaches Week, Tourism Kingston's Manager of Sport Communication, Rob Lendrum, sat down with Sophia Ogburn of Trillium Gymnastics, Robyn Elliott of Cloverdale Judo Club, Ryan Day of Kingston United, Trevor Lamendeau of the Kingston Thunder, Chris Bowie of the Kingston Baseball Association, and Morgan McHaffie of Queen's University women's hockey.
Photo caption: Ryan Day
How Coaching Has Changed
Every one of them acknowledges that they coach differently than the way they were coached.
Ryan has seen soccer move away from a top-down approach toward something more player led, closer to guided discovery than instruction.
“It used to be very command style,” he says. “Your coach would say, this is how we're doing things today, this is what we're working on, this is how you do it, go and do it. Nowadays, it's a lot more player led, where they get to make their mistakes and they get to fix them, and then they get some input in the session.”
Sport science has advanced a lot. Citing new developments in movement science and kinesiology, Sophia jokes that even common stretches from her early days of training are no longer used.
Photo caption: Trevor Lamendeau
Trevor points to new technology including something as simple as a phone camera, which can now show a young hitter the hitch in their swing instead of a coach shouting at them to keep their head still. Chris sees an overwhelming number of new tools and resources available to athletes and coaches now, with new ones promising to revolutionize the game seemingly every week. His approach is to make use of the tools that are actually helping without losing sight of the player in front of him. “I find myself trying to balance making good use of these opportunities with still tailoring what we do with each player to meet them where they are,” he says.
Robyn has watched martial arts open up in its own way. It used to feel closed off to anyone who wasn't already good at it, especially if you were a woman. What's changed is “a lot more inclusion, it’s a lot more welcoming,” regardless of skill level or gender. Robyn’s openness earned her the honor of a 2026 Ontario Coaching Excellence Award from the Coaches Association of Ontario, after families of her athletes rallied and nominated her.
Photo caption: Morgan McHaffie
Being at the university level, Morgan has access to resources that wouldn’t have been available to her coaches: video, analytics, data, sport science, strength training and conditioning. However, the biggest change she sees is the shift from making the best hockey players into making the best athletes. “Which is great,” she says, “because that sets them up for success in life too”.
The biggest theme that came up among all the coaches was the focus on development over results. That could mean skills development or developing character. Sophia sees kids as kids first and athletes second, especially at the younger levels, since sport is only one piece of a much bigger life. Chris says the biggest turnoff he's seen in young athletes is when the adults around them care more about outcome than process. Robyn's proudest coaching memory backs that up. After a tournament where her judo athletes didn't come home with a single medal, another club pulled her aside, impressed by how they carried themselves. Her kids, they told her, were great humans. She still thinks about that more than any podium finish.
Photo caption: Sophia Ogburn
The Mantras That Guide Them
“Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.” Anyone who watched the mid-2000s high school/football drama Friday Night Lights, knows how powerful a mantra can be when it’s uttered by the right coach. Push for a personal coaching mantra, and each coach says something a little different, but somehow, they all land in the same place.
“Players don't care how much you know until they know how much you care,” says Ryan. “You have to show the players that you're working with that you genuinely care about them outside of the sport.”
Sophia boils it down to a single word: foundations. The belief that fundamentals, taught properly and repeated, are what let a gymnast build something at any level. “It doesn't matter if you're a rec gymnast or compulsory or excel or optional or national,” she says, “you can have beautiful gymnastics at any level.”
Photo caption: Robyn Elliott
Robyn's is about permission. “I want people to love judo, and I want them to love it in the way that is meaningful for them,” she says, whether that means getting on the mat with friends or pursuing medals at a tournament.
Trevor's team lives by three words. “Our philosophy comes down to three things,” he says.
Effort, attitude, and gratitude. The rest ultimately takes care of itself.
Chris has two. One for practice and one for the season. “Practice the impossible until the hard is easy,” he says, describing training exercises built to be harder than game situations so that game feels slower and more manageable by comparison. The second is about getting athletes excited to play and keep coming back: “Love the game more at the end of the season than you did at the beginning”.
Morgan carries two lines of her own. One, comes from legendary football coach Bill Belichick: “Talent sets the floor, character sets the ceiling.” The other speaks more to her coaching style as she tries to teach resilience: “Don’t let the room determine your mindset. Let your mindset influence the room.”
A Coaching Community Built in Kingston
Kingston has helped shape each of these coaches. Sophia, who grew up outside Toronto, describes Kingston as small and big at the same time: big enough to have experienced coaches to learn from, small enough that a young coach still has room to grow instead of getting shut out the way she might in a bigger market. Chris describes something similar inside baseball specifically: a group of veteran coaches with decades of knowledge, working alongside younger coaches bringing in new ideas. “Each year I discover another baseball mind in Kingston who I can learn from,” he says. Mentoring some of those younger coaches, he adds, has been one of the most rewarding parts of the job.
Robyn found a ready-made community in Kingston when she moved from Nova Scotia. She quickly found her people within a close-knit martial arts scene where different clubs train together across styles. Ryan, who grew up in a country obsessed with the beautiful game, has treated Kingston's smaller soccer footprint as room to build rather than a limitation, and points to the pathway now running from Kingston United's youth programs up to the Sentinels. Trevor talks about a genuine network of sport volunteers and organizers who compare notes across different sports, even while technically competing for the same kids and the same fields.
Pride in community is especially important to the Queen’s women’s hockey team. Every September, Morgan has a meeting with the team, just to tell them about the program and its history going back to the infamous Red Barons and the Love-me-Littles in the 1890s.
I can just see the rookies’ eyes kind of glowing and beaming when they really find out how much history is here, with Queen's, with women's hockey, and with Kingston.
Thanks, Coach
Despite different ages, levels and sports, Sophia Ogburn, Robyn Elliott, Ryan Day, Trevor Lamendeau, Chris Bowie, and Morgan McHaffie share a belief in putting people ahead of results and developing athletes into good humans. Successes come much easier when athletes find a way to contribute and feel appreciated.
This National Coaches Week, Kingston thanks these six, and every coach across Kingston. #ThanksCoach.
