It’s more than winning: New Kidsports boss emphasizes connection, fun in youth sports

Three months into her new role as Kidsports executive director, Bailey Stokes is still decorating her office.

Her main decor, a plastic basketball hoop from her niece and nephew, hangs over a cabinet door. Stokes wants to move it. It isn’t quite secure enough for dunking.

Stokes is a proud “overly involved aunt” and comes from a Eugene family of serious sports enthusiasts. Her niece and nephew’s weekend soccer and basketball games are family affairs. On Mondays, Stokes’ dad, Tim, a former NFL player and Kidsports coach, sometimes comes in to debrief her niece’s basketball games. Stokes coaches the team.

“Here’s what you need to have them working on,” he says, launching into his take on the second and third graders’ performances.

Though the Stokes clan is competitive, Bailey learned early that youth sports was about much more than winning. Her own experiences — in sports and in life — inform the mindset that she brings to the local nonprofit: that youth sports should be accessible to all, a community safety net and ultimately — something fun.

From sports to fashion

Stokes grew up immersed in Kidsports. She played mainly soccer and basketball. Her brothers played multiple sports. And her dad coached. Tim Stokes said his daughter was a “totally unselfish” player.

“Her idea of the perfect basketball game was when everyone scored 10 points, everyone got a chance to shoot the ball and everything,” he said.

She went on to become a basketball star and two-time high school state champion in high jump at South Eugene High School. She played college basketball at Oregon State University, but ultimately was benched for good by an ankle injury, bringing her athletic career to a halt.

The loss of her identity as a basketball player was heartbreaking.

“It wasn’t easy for me to even attend basketball games, even as a fan, for a while,” she said.

Stokes then launched herself into a career in apparel design.

While she was in graduate school, she was inspired by a girl with cerebral palsy with whom she worked at a summer camp.

Stokes researched the clothing needs of adolescent girls with disabilities. Clothing companies in 2009, however, weren’t progressive enough to use Stokes’ findings and she ultimately decided to trade academia for working in the apparel industry.

She went on to work for several companies, including kids’ clothes brand Hanna Andersson.

At age 30, between her switch from academic to industry work, Stokes lost her first husband, Mark Vaught, to cancer. The loss taught her that how she spent her time mattered, she said, a philosophy that has guided her since.

In 2021, Stokes moved back to Eugene to be closer to family. While one of the main reasons for moving back was to fill gaps at her family’s metal-stamping business, as a human-resources and supply chain manager, another motivation was to start coaching where she had built her foundations as a player and a person.

She became a Kidsports basketball coach soon after moving back.

A coach’s influence 

Coaching basketball gave Stokes a way to give back to the community that raised her up. She saw in real time how playing basketball helped the girls she coached learn how to handle disappointment, build resilience, work with people who were different and commit to something.

“Kids learn so much about just continuing to show up, because showing up really matters,” she said. “I think there are a lot of young adults and adults who are really struggling with that right now.”

And watching her dad, who coached high school football in addition to Kidsports, taught her early on the difference a coach can make in a kids’ life.

She would meet his former players everywhere she went as she grew up in Eugene — and it hasn’t stopped.

“He’s 76 years old now, and we run into people all the time who are like, ‘How’s coach?’” Stokes said.

She remembers her dad giving his players rides sometimes and stopping at McDonalds on the way if he knew the kid may not have a meal waiting at home. Her dad’s attention served as a safety net for kids who were struggling. After COVID-19, Tim Stokes said he sees youth sports as a resource that’s needed more than ever, and one that his daughter has the patience and compassion to lead well.

“I worry about the health, not only physical, but mental health, of young people,” said Tim Stokes. “One thing about team sports is that it creates relationships and friendships that can last a lifetime.”

Bailey Stokes also knows personally how a coach can change a life. When she got serious about basketball in high school, her dad wanted her to participate in another sport as well.

John Gillespie, former South Eugene High School track and field coach, spent two years recruiting her to join his team, seeing her athletic potential.

When she finally joined her junior year, she won the state championship two months after learning the high jump, with a leap of 5 feet, 6 inches, Gillespie remembers.

Stokes also had coaches who were less in tune with the deeper meaning of sports. She once had a coach yell at her during one practice for smiling while playing defense. He asked why she was smiling.

“I told him what I thought was an obvious truth, ‘Because basketball is fun,’” Stokes said. “I wondered why, as a kid, I needed to tell my coach this.”

Stokes adores her second and third grade players and their whimsy. They bring stuffed animals to practice and when they’re not playing, they braid each other’s hair, crochet and play go-fish.

They’re doing exactly what they should be doing, Stokes said.

“You ask most athletes, what are their favorite memories — a lot of the time it’s not something that happened in the game,” she said.
“It’s the jokes in the locker room or dancing together after a game or the prank they played on their coach or whatever. It’s all this goofy stuff that really is a conduit for community and connection.”

The power of youth sports

Stokes’ large glass windows overlook the new Civic Park turf field, a project that her predecessor, Bev Smith, championed. Her office building, the 6-year-old Kidsports Fieldhouse, still feels like it was just unwrapped from its packaging with its sleek lime green, white and black color palette. 

She’s quick to credit Smith, who was Kidsports executive director for 16 years and fought hard for kids to have equitable access to youth sports in addition to playing a large role in the creation of Civic Park. Stokes knows she has big shoes to fill, but jokes that her version of leadership may be sandals instead of shoes.

While public school enrollment in the area has been decreasing, the number of Kidsports signups has been steady or increasing, Stokes said. She sees the influence and respect Kidsports has in the community and wants to harness it by becoming even more of a resource for schools and families.

She’s getting to know school gym teachers, so they can directly refer kids who aren’t on a team but would benefit from being on one. She also wants to make sure her coaches have resources to teach not only sports fundamentals, but also emotional skills to help kids when they experience anxiety or frustration.

While the learning curve of the job has been steep, Stokes said, the reward has been deep. She can easily see Kidsports’ wide reach.

“It is really special to drive through town on a weekend and pass fields in the car and see hundreds of kids and families out there just having fun playing,” Stokes said.