Episode 249: From Pioneer to Powerhouse - Building Culture at Valor Christian with Keith Wahl

Darrin Peppard (00:00.664)

Hey everybody, welcome into episode 249 of the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. You know, one of the biggest myths in athletics and education is that success just happens. You know, if you have enough talent, enough money, or big enough name on the front of your jersey or the side of your helmet, that just leads to success. But if you have led in schools for any length of time, you know that's absolutely not true.

What really separates the healthiest and most consistent programs, whether it's in the classroom or in athletics, is clarity of mission and the courage to stick to it when everything around you is shifting. Today's guest, Keith Wall, knows that world up close. He is the athletic director at Valor Christian High School in Colorado. It's an athletic program that is sitting right in the middle of NIL, transfer rules, club pressure, and high expectations, and yet

They are relentlessly focused on culture, faith, and developing people, not just players. We're going to talk about what happens when your systems disappear and what it takes to rebuild them. We'll dig into youth sports pressure, parent expectations, and why Keith believes that sports don't actually teach life lessons. It's leaders that do. If you're a school or district leader, there's a lot here that translates directly into your world. Even if you've never drawn up

a single lineup card in your life.

But before we get into that, how about a quick word about my partners, our sponsor, Digicoach. You've heard me say it again and again here on the show. Clarity and leadership starts with your visibility. After all, you cannot coach what you don't see. Digicoach helps school leaders get into more classrooms, capture more real-time data, and then turn those walkthroughs into meaningful growth-focused coaching conversations.

Darrin Peppard (02:27.574)

Instead of random visits and scattered notes, Digicoach gives you simple, intentional tools so your feedback is consistent, supportive, and aligned with what matters most, students and instruction. That's how you build a true coaching culture, not just a compliance checklist. If you're ready to simplify your classroom walkthroughs and focus more on impact, head over to digicoach.com and mention that I sent you for special partner pricing.

Once again, that's digicoach.com and tell them that Darren sent you. All right, let's jump into this conversation here with Valor Christian Athletic Director, Keith Wall.

Darrin Peppard (00:01.066)

So if you are a fan of high level athletics, professional athletics, or if you've ever spent any time in the Rocky Mountain region, like myself, both big time professional football fan, big time Denver Bronco fan, also former superintendent in Colorado, if you if you're like me, you've heard of Valor Christian High School before, there's a good chance that that is

That is a school that you've heard of. Maybe you've watched a Monday night football game and when Christian McCaffrey introduces himself, instead of saying Stanford, he says, Valor Christian High School. Yep, that's who he's talking about. And today on the show, I'm super excited. I have Keith Wall joining me. Keith is the director of athletics at Valor Christian High School. Been there since its inception. Keith and I actually met this summer at the Coaching Effects Summit in Kansas City.

It sponsored by the Excel Institute and the Athletics of Business. Had some great conversations, made some really great connections. So Keith, I'm super excited to have you joining him here on Leaning Into Leadership.

Keith Wahl (01:11.992)

Thank you, Darren. And I share the same gratitude for the chance that we had to intersect paths with our friends from Excel. And I'm really just looking forward to our time.

Darrin Peppard (01:25.56)

Yeah, for sure. You know, and I'm flashing back. So one of the things we got to do as a part of this was to go to our Royals and Yankees game. And one, I'm not a Yankee fan, but we did get to see Aaron Judge hit one out of the ballpark. No, it wasn't the one he hit over the over the entire display board. That was the night before he hit a little bleeder over the centerfee to offense. But nonetheless, we got to we got to see Aaron Judge hit one out of the park. But

Keith Wahl (01:32.622)

And who?

Keith Wahl (01:39.894)

Okay?

Keith Wahl (01:51.276)

Yes.

Darrin Peppard (01:53.454)

You and I were actually having a conversation that evening and we'll get to the topic in a minute. But here we are recording this at this time. It's the week 12. The Broncos are on a buy. We're both Bronco fans. The Broncos are nine and two. We talked like, hey, we thought this team could be good this year. I don't think either of us thought they'd be this good.

Keith Wahl (02:07.597)

Yeah.

Keith Wahl (02:12.396)

I don't know if we thought first place nine and two with the number one seed in sight was in our future, but boy, it's a good thing. It's good to have Bronco country in high regard right now.

Darrin Peppard (02:20.601)

It is.

Absolutely. And if you're a Chiefs fan, I don't feel bad for you. I really don't. I'm thrilled that we took the Chiefs down already once and hopefully we'll get them a second time. all right, let's get to what we're actually here to talk about. We've got a bunch of interesting topics that may unfold in front of us. I've given a little bit there, but give our listeners and our viewers on YouTube maybe just a little bit more of who Keith Wall is, what has brought you to this point in your career.

Keith Wahl (02:27.106)

I don't feel, no, not a lick.

Keith Wahl (02:53.422)

Yeah, so I have been in this area of Highlands Ranch, Colorado for really nearly 25 years. I was blessed to open up a public school just up the road, Mountain Vista High School. I was the first head baseball coach there, English teacher, film teacher back in the day from 2001 to 2007 in the spring, well, winter spring of 2007.

I still remember, I remember the day vividly when my wife sent me, I still say it was the first text message she ever sent me. E9 were before smartphones. She says, have you thought anything more about that Valor thing? I'm sitting, I'm sitting in my classroom at Mountain Vista going, lady, I was the state runner up last year at Mountain Vista High School. After just five years of baseball, we're rocking and rolling. We're the number one team going into the 2007,

thought a thing about that Valor thing. So I took it as just a little bit of divine inspiration. I sent an email and literally Darren, tell you a week later, I'm in front of the AD, the first AD Rod Sherman. Then I'm in front of the first head of school, Unruh. Two weeks later, I'm the first head baseball coach at Valor Christian. This thing that's just brand new down the street. And it's been an incredible ride ever since jumping from public into the private sector.

I have coached baseball, obviously your YouTube folks can see the dog piles up behind me and all the great times we've had on the baseball field here, building the brotherhood here at Valor Christian baseball. And in 2012, Rod invited me to be a part of the athletic administration here at Valor. And I came in as an assistant AD. We did some unique things in terms of our model there. Took a brief respite, went out of state for a time to be an AD down South.

Briarwood Christian in Birmingham came back to Valor a couple years later and have been working full time as athletic director here for a couple years now and have really, really enjoyed it since hanging up my cleats as a coach in 2022.

Darrin Peppard (04:59.344)

Yeah, you know, and I, I, may have talked about this, but, but I'm going to, I'm going to, guess squirrel chase for just a second. So as, as a, you know, a baseball coach in, you know, one of the largest, you know, categories there, you know, probably, you know, six a or, or whatever it is there in Colorado, I would imagine you probably at some point in time, uh, went head to head with, with an old, old coaching friend of mine from my years in Arizona.

Scott Bullock, was the head coach there at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins. Scott and I kind of cut our teeth together as teachers in Kingman, Arizona.

Keith Wahl (05:28.125)

yeah.

Keith Wahl (05:31.885)

Yeah.

Keith Wahl (05:36.143)

Oh wow, didn't know that. Scott is, gosh, he is just an incredible man of integrity, has just led a tremendous baseball program. Our Mountain Vista team, my last game at Mountain Vista, we lost to what ended up being a four-time state champion for Rocky Mountain back in 2007. That was my last game at Vista, was up there and...

Scott and I have remained in touch, but as our school, he's been rocking in 5A for years and then we kind of worked our way up at Valor 4A to 5A, but have competed against Scott, have loved and respected him just deeply through the years. He is tremendous.

Darrin Peppard (06:19.376)

Yeah, wonderful, wonderful guy. Somebody that I certainly have a lot of respect for. anyway, that was a little bit of a squirrel chase. So, so let's come back to, uh, you, know, you have the opportunity to jump down the street to Valor right at, you know, at its inception, right? When it very first got started. And, and one of the conversations you and I had had, uh, and we've talked about this a little bit more, but we talked about it this summer, uh, when we were in Kansas city together is just kind of that, that initial.

Keith Wahl (06:23.542)

you. Yeah.

Darrin Peppard (06:49.53)

dawning of the work there at Valor, not just athletically, but the school as a whole to where it is now. And the phrase that you had put on it, I think was something like from pioneer to max prep top 50. Take us through some of that. Take us through some of the, I guess the visioning and the planning and the design to move from

Keith Wahl (07:05.28)

Okay.

Darrin Peppard (07:16.89)

hey, here's the keys on your brand new building to what it has become.

Keith Wahl (07:22.536)

Yeah, I think, Darren, think one of the interesting things about that is part of it is what never changed, which is the founding documents, our mission, our vision, our purpose. All those things are still the same today. And it's what attracted so many of us as pioneers back in the day in 2007 when we talked about preparing tomorrow's leaders to transform the world for Christ as our vision. Excellence in all things influenced through excellence, all these mottos.

These were all things that were stirring inside of a group of people who wanted to start a school and do it together and do it under the banner of Christianity and Christian schooling. That was really what motivated all of us. And I think still amazingly motivates people to apply for positions today and join our legion of

people underneath our banner here at Valor. I think that's really the interesting thing is that I think what gets missed sometimes, it happens in business. It doesn't happen often in education that you have this mission, a vision, a clear direction, and you stick with it. And that's been the coolest part about here. We have this really amazing culture document here that was written by many of our, I call them our forefathers now, because you feel like you're a part of like, you know, the...

Darrin Peppard (08:44.569)

Yeah.

Keith Wahl (08:45.428)

you know, the founding of the country almost like, but you're a founding of a school. And, but the people who wrote those documents and there's, and by the way, they, very few of them are still here. One of the last ones is our current CFO. She's actually going to retire this year. And so for me, as one of the few who are left, we feel a real responsibility to take that baton of the culture document and of the things that were, that started here and pass them onto the next generation. So it really started.

honestly with the excitement around the vision. And then we've held to that vision. And I don't want to say proof's in the pudding because that seems trite, but there is a commitment to that common cause that I think it's missed in schools sometimes.

Darrin Peppard (09:33.071)

Well, you know, what is making me think about is really how you build that culture of this is who we are. This is what our true core values are. And what is something unique? Of course, you're a private school, so people are paying tuition to come to your school. they're certainly, you know, I'm sure you've heard it all. Some could say, well, yeah, you know, when kids can pay to go to your school, then.

But the other side of that coin is parents who can pay to go to your school may have some different demands that you still have to go back to collectively. These are our core values. This is what we're about. Talk about that from a leadership lens of how you stay so true to that to continue to build that core culture.

Keith Wahl (10:11.822)

Mm-hmm.

Keith Wahl (10:25.09)

Yeah, I think the interesting part and I mean, it's not hard to jump on Google and you know, see Valor Christian or see some of the difficulty we went through last spring. And I will tell you, I think some of that difficulty is really easily pinpointed to we had systems in place.

We changed some of those systems, and I'll go deeper into this in a second, but now we've re-implemented those systems and we're experiencing a sense of peace as a result. So, let me go backwards. Rod Sherman, first AD, gentleman I was hired under here, worked under. We had these things called team plans. They were comprehensive. It had all of our, it's more of a, it's not just a policy document, it's more of a vision document for each of our sports programs.

This is who we are. This is who we want to be. This is how we do things. And we had these team plans in place from about 2009 to 2016. Some of the former coaches are probably still seizing, you know, just hearing the word team plan because it was like this annual process of having to redo everything all the time. And it was hard. It was hard work, but it was good work because it laid a foundation. Well, we went through a period of time where the team plans went away.

And no fault of anybody's, there was a vision for taking those team plans, making them more of a marketing plan as well as the team plan and all these things. Well, guess what? At the same exact time, we had this thing called COVID that we all went through and we didn't take the time to reimplement the team plans or an athletic handbook to guide people in this is who we are. It's in writing, it's in print. You know who we are. When we have our...

parent meetings on the front end, we're referring back to the team plan or the handbook. Well, we went through a bunch of stuff last off season and largely I believe it's because we didn't have those things in place. So what did I do this summer was boom, let's get these things back in place. Let's create order for our people again and clearly communicate who we are, what we're about and how we do things. And now we're experiencing a new sense of peace.

Keith Wahl (12:39.916)

Now the cool part and hard part too is you put something in print, they're gonna hold you to it. And like you said, hey, our constituents, they do pay a lot of money to go to school here to be a part of the excellence that we offer. And they're gonna hold you to that account. We're okay with that. That's totally fine. That's absolutely fair. If we say these are the things we're about, we wanna be held to that. And that's my job as a culture keeper and a standard bearer to say, we're gonna engage in those conversations and continue to get better.

but we're going to do it in this framework. It's almost one of my favorite things to say. feel like I stole this from David Cook's golf sacred journey back in the day. They call that links a utopia. Now I think he's changed the title, but you, in order to paint, you have to have a canvas. You have to have a border and you have to paint on the canvas. If you don't have that, you're just painting out in space and nothing good happens. And so we've now we're back to having the canvas. We're back to having the framework.

And I think we're gonna have a good result, good outcomes now because our processes are better.

Darrin Peppard (13:46.181)

Yeah, well, and I think again, you know, from the leadership perspective, the more that you are able to, you know, put those edges in place, give people the canvas to paint on, but give them, you know, that clear expectation, give them, hey, this is what success looks like in terms of this, this is what your team plan, a good team plan is gonna look like this, then you do start to see that consistency.

Keith Wahl (14:12.695)

Are you?

Darrin Peppard (14:12.976)

I think another thing too, and you've touched on it, and even though now many of those pioneers, as you have referred to, have retired or are retiring, I would imagine that there's been enough consistency with leadership or with carrying on the traditions, the values and so forth, that even people who now come in,

How do you bring somebody new in? I mean, let's say you hire, you know, a new physics teacher or you hire a new baseball coach. How do you bring them in to help them understand or, I guess, get them to be a part of what it means to be at Valor Christian?

Keith Wahl (15:00.14)

Yeah, I, I will tell you, I think again, I give a lot of credit to our previous leadership and all the things they put in place. One of the things that we do is as we hire a teacher, like you just said, a physics teacher, whatever, as a part of onboarding, as a part of the pre-season, we call it the, the very first couple of days, it's actually all the new folks and they get to hear the origin story of Valor. They get to hear a bunch of our origin stories.

And then they get to share their own. How did you get here? How did you get to this place? How did, how did God bring you to this point in your career to bring you to Valor Christian High School? We have that baked into our meetings, our meetings in the preseason, which is great. one of the things that I'm trying to do more of is not only do that, cause that, that only happens in August, right? Like when you first hire teachers. So I don't just hire a coach in August.

I'm gonna hire them potentially at different points of time during the year. So what I'm trying to do now is meet more individually with our coaches, help understand what their testimony is, how they're sharing that with each other, and then, hey, not just your testimony of how you got to Valor, but how did you come to Jesus? How did you come to know faith? And how did you then create a narrative so that everybody knows you individually? And that's been a really neat thing to...

be able to see somebody and go, yeah, you came from X, Y, and Z and this was really fun. Instead of just seeing a resume or a social media post, you actually get to hear a story and stories matter.

Darrin Peppard (16:37.296)

Yeah, absolutely. No, I think that's awesome. I really, really do. I love what you guys have done to build the culture. And it's great to hear kind of that inside story because again, like I said, right off the top, anybody who's heard of Valor Christian, you think, oh, they just win all these state championships and they just do this and they just do this. But there's so much of the undercurrent. There's so much that goes into that level of excellence. It's not an accident.

it's because of the work and the systems and the people that are within that organization. That's a big part of why I wanted to have this conversation with you is I think a lot of times leaders will be in a place and they may just maintain status quo or they're not necessarily willing to say these are the steps that it takes for us to truly achieve and consistently have excellence.

as a part of our organization and certainly what Valor Christian has in place. And it's not just the results on the field, just the results in the classroom, but across the board is because of so much intention. I wanna go to something else, but I wanna give you a chance to maybe touch on that just a little further.

Keith Wahl (17:51.929)

No, I'm glad you did. There's something that I've really, we just, I mean, we just met today. So when I took this role, I created what I called the athletic leadership team. so I have our sport, Matt Frederick, our sports science director, I have Jessica Caldwell, assistant AD who oversees spiritual formation, Justin Byler who oversees operations, Katie Neff who oversees our sports media. By the way.

Can I just brag on Katie for a second? Like if you want, if you see anything on Valor Athletics, social media, she did it. And it's unbelievable that one person accomplishes all that they do. It's crazy, like all the work that she does. And then what we were doing today, the reason we were together was because we're interviewing for our college, our college recruiting coordinator position. And we were together, honestly, we were together for two and a half hours and we were really

because we spend roughly 90 minutes a week together, we know each other, we talk about life, we have a level of vulnerability with one another, it is like a second family here at the school. That's something I'm really proud of that we have created is a sense of comfort. And so as we were talking about this candidate, Darren, we went deep. Like we talked about some really...

potentially challenging things that we're going to go through now that we are going to add another person to this group. And so there was a level of mourning of we created something really special. How do we graft in somebody else into this really great culture, great feel for who we are? And if I can just shout out real quick, because it's right over my shoulder, it's this the trust triangle right over my shoulder from my friend.

My leadership coach is a gentleman named Lucas Jaden. He works with Steve Jones. Jaden Jones is their name. Lucas works with Dave Roberts and a bunch of the Dodgers. So congratulations to them for the World Series and all that. Steve, his partner works with... I apologize, but yeah, get you. Dodgers were done. No, but Lucas... And that's the only reason I would ever cheer for the Dodgers is because of Lucas. But the base of the trust triangle is authentic vulnerability.

Darrin Peppard (20:01.068)

You might have just lost half our audience right there. They might have just said, we're out. Yeah.

Darrin Peppard (20:11.107)

Yeah.

Keith Wahl (20:16.326)

and to have a small group of people that you can be yourself with and just love one another, not because of your works, not because of things that you do, but because of who you are, is a really special thing, And we've got a pretty neat culture that way, and I'm really eternally grateful for it.

Darrin Peppard (20:36.918)

I think it's so important to have those people that you can lean into. so, and actually you really have moved me right to where I want to go. So you mentioned the trust triangle. I'm going to bring up a couple other things that I know you have really leaned into in your time there at Valor. You shared with me a couple of different times, you know, this away game, you youth sport work that you've done with Baylor University. I mentioned off the top, but you know,

Keith Wahl (20:47.374)

Yeah.

Darrin Peppard (21:06.284)

Excel Sports, the work that they do, just so many different things that you have brought forward. if you want to talk about a way game, if you want to talk about Excel, if you want to talk about both, that's up to you. I'll make that dealer's choice. talk about how you bring those pieces in and why you choose certain things.

Keith Wahl (21:20.45)

Yeah, so.

Keith Wahl (21:29.452)

Yeah, so let me, I want to start with Baylor, Faith and Sport Institute that Dr. Paul Putz, Dr. John White, Cindy White, like all these folks have really fed a lot into us. Faith really is important to us. I think it's interesting. Mike Sanford's our new football coach and he's been all around the country coaching at the college level. He's recruited all around the country. And so he's seen private schools around and he thought...

perception was, well, know, they're gonna say Christian to a point, and then every Christian school is kind of in name only. You know, like there's a level that you reach. And he just, he's like, he keeps going, he's like, man, we are really truly about the Christian mission and who we are. And it's because of people like Baylor who are feeding things into us, and we've created a faith and sport integration class. I just got out of it today, we had a great time.

I'm talking about perseverance today. Just a blast with coach Jess and I teaching that. But some of the opportunities that that's opened up, I'm going to plug. This is the book you've mentioned is a way game. It's by Brian Smith and Ed Yuzinski. And we're in a cohort that is studying this book together. And man, is it just a really thoughtful piece about how to navigate youth sports, how we got here, I think is probably my.

That's the first section. It's probably one of my favorite things to think about because we at Valor Christian can be perceived as being part of the problem. Like there's a high expectation on young kids. We were talking about that as we were starting our conversation that, where's the pressure on, holy cow, there's so much pressure on sixth, seventh, eighth graders. Holy cow, there's so much pressure on ninth, 10th, 11th, 12th graders. Where does this whole thing go? We at least know.

Where we've come from, how we got here, but now how can we be a part of the solution? Not just private schools, but public schools as well. How can we really allow sports to continue to thrive in an NIL culture in all of these things that are just really swirling about our heads in a chaotic way? How can we create something that is valuable? How can we create meaning in sport? Because right now all sports are as a transactional, are you good enough? Here's your money.

Keith Wahl (23:53.475)

And that's all there is to it. There's so much more to sport than that. You know that, I know that. Every educator in sport knows that, but we have to be willing to, we have to be willing to teach the harder lessons. I actually, had the gentleman we were interviewing today, we had a coffee earlier in the week and he said, sports are a great teacher of incredible life lessons. And I said, I'm going to stop you. I'm going to challenge that thought. Sports don't teach anything. Okay.

Darrin Peppard (23:58.371)

Mm-hmm.

Keith Wahl (24:22.978)

People teach the lessons. Sports by themselves, they they're an inanimate object. It requires us to teach the bigger, stronger and greater lessons that they are there for. And that's what I think we should all be called to in this next, gosh, I don't know how much longer I have to work, 15, 20 years, I don't know. But man, I wanna make that a part of the mission to help everybody see the greater lessons that can be taught, because sports by themselves won't teach it.

It requires people.

Darrin Peppard (24:55.012)

Yeah, for sure. And you you mentioned something there that I think even here in just the last handful of years has really driven so much change in youth sports. I mean, we go back, you know, 10, 15 years, you know, or even a little further than that when, I was a head coach and you know, that specialization was just maybe starting to become a bit of an issue.

and you know the the club team was starting to become a bit of an issue during my high school principal years definitely that club was becoming almost where and I think this is true in a lot of places around the country where the club was much more the thing than the high school sport yeah the kid played the high school sport but maybe more recruiting happened out of the club than it did out of there and now

Keith Wahl (25:41.761)

Mm-hmm.

Darrin Peppard (25:51.131)

man, plug in the NIL issue and just the impact that that has had. We had the opportunity, you and I in Kansas City, to listen to Mike Buddy, the athletic director at Texas Christian University, and man, just, who did he peel back some layers for us? But I'm curious, without getting into the college level of the NIL,

Keith Wahl (25:53.678)

Mm-hmm.

Keith Wahl (26:10.7)

Yeah.

Darrin Peppard (26:16.496)

Let's talk about that. You kind of opened the can of worms. So let's talk about how NIL itself, that NIL culture is impacting high school sports and maybe even down to middle school sports. I mean, we joke here in Nebraska, the schools that I work with, I mean, they talk about, you know, I mean, we have an actual transfer portal. I mean, it's so different now than even five, six, seven years ago. So go ahead.

Keith Wahl (26:30.584)

Yeah.

Keith Wahl (26:38.701)

Yeah.

Keith Wahl (26:45.272)

Well, I think the interesting thing is that all states now at the high school level are starting to look into, okay, well, colleges are allowing one free transfer. Should we do the same at the high school level? So philosophically, that's being talked about. And you just kind of sit there and scratch your head and go, what happened to traditional high school? Where did that go? know, because traditional college, out the window. But now we're talking about

potentially a transfer port. And we, I have a, had, actually let me, I'm just gonna click a different tab here. I had from summer to the fall, so one year, I had 38 transfers that we had to, that we had to manage. 38 transfers in one year. That's ridiculous. That's just coming in. That's not even going out. So,

That culture of what's in it for me from a transactional standpoint, not from a transformational standpoint, is real. Thankfully at this point, state law requires that we're not allowed to promote, we're not allowed to facilitate NIL deals, but a kid can benefit from them. So thankfully we're still a step away.

But man, weird. I talked to Rod Sherman, who I mentioned before, who's our first AD here. He's head football coach at Orange Lutheran out in California. Congrats to him and the big upset that they just staged this last week in the CIF playoffs. Super proud of him. But we're talking about these really high level things where, my gosh, like out in California, you can transfer week to week. Like you could have this school offer this to this kid. And then all of a sudden he's gone.

What do you do with that? So that's the world we're living in. And by the way, we've had kids get poached from here to go to other states. IMG Academy, hey, love what you're doing, but they are offering freebies to high, high, high level kids. We can't offer the freebie. Wait a minute, what just happened?

Darrin Peppard (28:40.826)

Right.

Keith Wahl (29:03.948)

And that kind of hits you just out of nowhere, like Lawrence Taylor on the blind side. mean, like, my gosh, where did this all come from? It happened in a flash, but now we have to not just sit back and we can't be the old people yelling at the clouds, Darren. We can't, we have to say, what are we going to do about it? How can we add value to the sport experience? And how can we just keep them here in a way that makes sense?

Darrin Peppard (29:29.636)

Yeah, absolutely. It's certainly an interesting, interesting time in both youth sports and honestly in collegiate sports. As you said, the traditional college process experience completely out the door. I think it was last season, the quarterback at UNLV, mean, they're undefeated and he wakes up and says, you know what, unless you give me this, I'm out. And then out the door he went.

Keith Wahl (29:57.615)

Yeah. Yeah, I think.

Darrin Peppard (30:00.593)

And to UNLV's credit, they still did quite well without him, but amazing.

Keith Wahl (30:05.262)

Yeah. And I think when you, when you really dig into the youth sport piece of all this too, we cannot, and I know this is true in Colorado. can't speak for Nebraska and all of the other places your listeners are coming from. This is the first generation right now, the ones who are in high school. This is the first generation of parents who have never been able to choose anything except club sports. So they have been paying.

for their kids' sport experience, a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of financial investment. And by the time they get to high school, they've invested a ton, so their expectations are much higher. Though, genetically, most of it really still looks the same as it did when I started coaching high school 20-some years ago. It's not all that different, but the investment's higher. And so the trust level actually goes down.

And so you've really got to show extraordinary value and really work doubly hard to get them to understand and accept what we're trying to sell them in terms of a better experience, a more holistic experience.

Darrin Peppard (31:20.196)

Yeah, and it's, you know, it's interesting, you know, mutual friend of ours, Jason Ryan, who, you know, I work with here at Pavilion, us to high school. but you know, he and I've had a number of conversations about that where, you know, Jason is really running a very traditional nine, 12 comprehensive high school, 18, 1900 kids. And, you know, certainly they've been fortunate with, you know, some bond issues and being able to add, you know, some incredible, you know, spaces for their athletic programs.

But when kids are just gonna go follow this person or I'm gonna go over here or that kind of thing, the communication that falls to the leaders of the school, the building administrators, the athletic administrators, to parents, selling that we are more than just about winning football games. We're more than just about winning state softball championships.

Keith Wahl (31:57.975)

Yeah.

Darrin Peppard (32:19.854)

That becomes an interesting challenge. And it goes back to, to loop us back to the beginning, draws back to what are your core values and what is your school really truly about.

Keith Wahl (32:28.856)

Yep. That's right. And I think that's one thing that is, has allowed us to continue to stay process driven, process oriented and say, let's just make sure that we are always buttoned up and supporting our mission vision and all the things that we are about. I think it's been the most helpful thing because we have, we truly have a true North and I would just encourage a public school, a private school, whoever

have something documented so you know who you are. Know what your identity is, otherwise when these storms and all these things come your way, which they're gonna, you've got an opportunity to say, we're still going this way, we're still going this way.

Darrin Peppard (33:15.054)

Yeah, outstanding stuff, man. I love that so much. And our time has just flown by. at this point, I mean, God, I love this conversation so much. But I want to ask you the same question I ask everybody here on the podcast. This is the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. So Keith, tell me, how are you leaning into leadership right now?

Keith Wahl (33:33.721)

Yeah, I'm really leaning into leadership at an individual level. One of the things I've been most pleased with, most happy about over the course of the last couple of years is the individual relationships I've built with our team here. I took the time over the summer and this is a goofy thing. Some leaders may love it, some leaders may go, there's no way I would do that.

I know every one of my team members Enneagram and I know they're working genius. And so I know how they're wired and I know how they work. And so what I did is I took those results, I plugged them into ChatGPT to say, hey, what are the strengths of somebody who is wired this way? What are the opportunities for growth? Now I can tailor my communication to each one of my team members differently. And so it's been a true gift to be able to just connect.

on an individual level with everyone I lead and hopefully, I mean, ultimately that's not about me. Hopefully it's a reflection of Jesus in me to be able to lift up all of my team members. that's how I'm leaning into it. I wanna give a quick shout out to, I told you the story as we started our conversation, the late Janie McHugh who just passed away on Saturday. She is.

She's my fellow Enneagram one. She and I were both linked that way and that we are perfectionists and we have this high high standard. Her team just won their fourth straight girls volleyball championship, a state record at the highest classification here. But she watched that game from her hospital bed and God love her. She, and I talked to her son. The funniest thing is like we both laughed the next day. We knew she was gonna wait.

You knew she was going to wait and hang on until she saw the end of the game dog on it. There was no shot that she was going to pass before that. And when they won, they rushed the game ball over to her. We have a very sweet picture of her hand on that. And she passed away an hour after the championship. getting to know her was a gift. And getting to know all of my team members is a gift. And that's where leaders really have a great opportunity to get to know each of their people.

Darrin Peppard (35:52.474)

Yeah, it's a beautiful story. Thanks so much for sharing that and for that wonderful tribute. Keith, people are gonna wanna get in touch with you. They're gonna wanna learn more about about Valor Christian. I'm definitely gonna put some links in the show notes for Valor Athletics so they can go check out some of the great media stuff, but how do people get in touch with you?

Keith Wahl (36:08.728)

Yeah, you bet.

Keith Wahl (36:13.666)

Yeah, the best way, Coach Wall 22 is on all my handles. One of the things I've leaned into, Darren, over the last, I don't know, four to six weeks is, I don't know if you're on Readwise. Readwise is a tremendous app. What it does is it actually reads all of your highlights from your Kindle and things like that. And then you can make these cool little images. So if you see an image up on any of my socials, it's just something cool that I've read.

And that's what I've been posting recently to just encourage leaders. So yeah, Coach Wall 22, reach out. Valoreagles.com is the Valor Athletics website. And you can certainly reach me via email that way too.

Darrin Peppard (36:54.96)

outstanding stuff. Keith Wall, thanks so much, man. This was an awesome conversation. I had a blast hanging out with you. Thanks for joining me on Leaning into Leadership.

Keith Wahl (37:02.819)

Thanks, Darrin. Thanks for having me.

All right folks, awesome conversation there with Keith. Like I talked about during the episode, Keith and I met this past summer at a conference rather in Kansas City and struck up a great conversation. And I'm just so grateful we had an opportunity to continue that conversation and to

hit the record button and let you listen to what I think of as a great leader and somebody who's certainly in a challenging position that most people would say, that's gotta be easy. Look at what you have. But certainly for Keith, there's still plenty of challenges. So again, Keith, thank you for joining me on Leaning Into Leadership. And now it's time for a pep talk. This week on the pep talk, I want to ask you a question that I have asked

a bunch of leaders over the course of this last week. I have been in a handful of schools that I work with on a regular basis during the course of this week. I've been on zoom with folks. I've been sending Marco Polos to folks and I'm asking them all the same thing. What are two or three wins from the first portion of this school year? You know, here we are. It's December. There's only a handful of school days until people return back onto another break. We just came back from a break and

it can be easy to lose sight of the great things that have happened. I've heard some amazing things from leaders over the course of the last week or so asking that very question. So I want to ask it of you, what are two or three wins, two or three things that are going really well, two or three things that you're extremely happy about, two or three things that you're really proud of that have taken place over these first few months of your school year. And then what's maybe one challenge that you're going to lean into as you get ready?

Darrin Peppard (04:53.976)

to launch into the second half of the year. Hey, that's what I've got for you this week, folks. Thank you so much for joining me here on Leaning Into Leadership. Get ready, we've got a special Wednesday episode, episode number 250. And you believe that? 250 episodes of Leaning Into Leadership podcast will drop this coming Wednesday. Make sure you check that out. Make sure you get down on the show notes, check out Keith Wall, check out the awesome stuff that they are doing at Valor Christian High School.

Again, thank you so much for joining me here on Leaning Into Leadership. Get out there and have a road to awesome week.