David Reimann of Legacy Volleyball on Coaching, Faith, Athlete Development, and Building a Christ-Centered Sports Culture
A conversation with David Reimann of Legacy Volleyball about coaching, athlete development, leadership, faith, family, and the mission behind building a Christ-centered volleyball culture in Spartanburg and across Upstate South Carolina.
The Heart Behind Legacy Volleyball in Spartanburg SC
What does it take to build a volleyball program that develops athletes on and off the court?
In Episode 2 of the UpState Press Podcast, we sit down with David Reimann of Legacy Volleyball to talk about coaching, athlete development, leadership, faith, and the mission behind building a Christ-centered volleyball culture in Upstate South Carolina.
Legacy Volleyball serves athletes through club volleyball, camps, clinics, academy programs, private training, adult open gyms, and tournaments. Based in Spartanburg, SC, the organization is focused on helping players grow in skill, character, discipline, and purpose while creating a strong volleyball community across the Upstate.
David shares his perspective on what makes great coaching, how athletes can grow beyond the game, and why Legacy Volleyball is committed to leaving a lasting impact through sports, mentorship, and faith-driven leadership.
Full Transcript
The transcript below is separated by chapter. Click any chapter title to open that exact timestamp in the YouTube episode.
Balancing Career Success and Family Life
I remember coming home and like, "Baby, I did it. I won this thing for the third time." Nobody does that. And she looked at me, she's like, "I'm so proud of you, honey." But when are you going to win one of these at home? So, I'm traveling 100 plus nights on the road. I'm working like crazy. I am leading well organizationally, but not leading well at home. We're sitting in Cabo, beautiful hotel, negative edge pool, looking out on the ocean, and I look over at my wife, and I'm like, "Hey, baby, isn't all of this worth it? Look at this. look where we're at. And she looked at me and it's the second thing she said, I'd give all this up to have you home every night. So, yeah, I'll start from the very beginning. Was born in Queens, New York in 1972.
Early Life, Faith, and Career Beginnings
Uh my parents grew up in that area and it was pretty rough rough part of town. And so when I was five, my parents wanted something better for their families and so they moved their generations of New York influence to to Arizona which was crazy talking about going out west. So I was about 5 years old. I don't remember too much about New York. I just remember the stories my parents told. So, I moved to Arizona and uh my parents put themselves through college to make a better life for their kids. And um my dad was very handy as well. He's an electrical engineer and built a huge house out there, my brothers and my dad and I. And um yeah, just love growing up in in Arizona. So, while we were out there, you know, we grew up good Catholic family, you know, and I was an alter boy. And uh and then walked in this little bombshell Jesus freak in my senior year of college of my wife and uh you know it was interesting. It was the first time I was single in a long time. I had a girlfriend in high school, had a girlfriend in college and so my buddies were throwing me this party and uh and then walked my wife and uh we just connected all night and I walked her to her car and I walked back in and my buddies were like, "Dude, you're going to marry that girl." I'm like, "I'm not even calling her, right? She's out of my league." I called her the next morning and um but that was a big trajectory change in my life, right? Because what got introduced to me there was this relationship with with Christ and you know, you know, she just was asking me questions and helping me understand what that meant. And it was just a pivotal moment for me as I was getting ready to graduate college. college. I went to Arizona State and um getting ready to do started my career and just the Lord just knew that the only way to get my attention was put somebody well out of my league in in front of me and uh and so that that started it. So I graduate Arizona State um you know and I go to right to work
Award Wins vs Home Priorities
for Black & Decker, big Fortune 500 company and construction was booming at the time. This is 1995. Construction was booming. It's going crazy. And um I'm I'm doing well at Black & Decker. And um I share this part because it's it's part of the relevancy of my faith journey too. So I haven't given my life to the Lord yet. Although my wife's charting, you know, we got married 1996. She's chipping away, but I'm with Black & Decker and they have this award called the Eagle Award and only 5% of the people win it. And I am obsessed with winning this thing. And so I do everything I need to. I'm traveling like crazy. I'm working long hours and I win it. And it was like, yes, this is so cool. I won the award. And then the immediate thought that came into my mind was, nobody picks this thing up a third time. Nobody. And so I remember working super super hard. Um, I'm getting promoted in my career as I'm going because of the success and and I win it a third time. And I remember coming home and I got to I get emotional sometimes talking about this. I remember coming home at this point. I had two young girls. We just my wife and I had twin daughters, Faith and Joy. And um I remember coming home and like, "Baby, I did it. I won this thing for the third time. Nobody does that." And she looked at me, she's like, "I'm so proud of you, honey, but when are you going to win one of these at home?" Right? So, I'm traveling 100 plus nights on the road. I'm working like crazy. I am leading well organizationally, but not leading well at home. And later that year, you know, part of the award is you get these amazing trips. And so we're sitting in Cabo, beautiful hotel, negative edge pool, looking out on the ocean, and I look over at my wife and I'm like, "Hey baby, isn't all of this worth it? Look at this. Look where we're at." And she looked at me and it's the second thing she said, "I'd give all this up to have you home every night." It's like, put things into perspective for me. So
Spiritual Awakening on the Football Field
around that time, you know, um, with Black & Deckers, we were moving. We moved to Seattle, Washington. So, I'm in Arizona and I go from 300 days of sunshine to 300 days of rain. And I remember I was I tried to turn the job down a 100 times like I don't want to go. I don't want to go. I don't want to go. And they're like, "It's what you need to do." And so our our girls were 2 years old at the time and I haven't given my life to the Lord yet. And um but I do love sports. So I go up there and we find this church. We're visiting a lot of churches, but there's one church in particular we find and these guys invite me out to play Thanksgiving Turkey Bowl day. And we get out there and these guys like, "Hey, let's let's pray before we play." You guys are crazy, right? I mean, like, we're here to play football or we prayed. And then we we whatever have a great time and then afterwards like, "Hey, let's let's just huddle up and pray again." And I remember at the moment like these were men and I always thought that was like so cool that we're bold in their faith and want to pray. And then they just started talking about their struggles and their challenges. Well, the way I grew up is, hey, I only talked about church on Sundays. I didn't share any of my dark secrets. And all of a sudden, these guys are being real and they're having real problems and they're talking about it. Their struggles with their marriage or pornography or how to raise kids, their jobs. I mean, they're talking about this stuff. And I'm like, you guys are crazy. But then they also talked about the answer that was in the Bible. I remember being on that football field after that second prayer and talking to these guys about these things. And I think the Holy Spirit just came over me on that football field in Gig Harbor, Washington. I gave my life to the Lord. And what was also happening
Miracle Healing and Purpose Realignment
around that time was my wife, you know, I witnessed a a real miracle. Like you could say whatever you want. It's called the testimony, but my wife got diagnosed with cervical cancer. And it was we were having we were having different conversations in our life at that time. Like what are we going to do? It's pretty advanced. What am I I'm going to be a single dad of two kids. What am I going to do? And so we were just and I didn't really know how to pray well then, but we were just praying just Lord help us. We didn't know what that meant. And uh then when she had her her little autopsies or her exam, whatever she had, and they sent it away to the lab and and we're preparing for surgery, we're preparing for chemo. We're preparing for the worst. And it comes back that they're like, there's no medical explanation, but all the cancer cells are gone. Like, we've never seen this ever. And for me, it was a knee falling moment of the grace of God of getting my attention of like, hey, you you've got to stop being so success driven and you got to start being purpose driven. And it was cool because when we had moved
Downsizing, Marriage, and Embracing Ministry
from Arizona to Seattle, within a year, all this happens and then the Lord brings us right back from Seattle back into Arizona. And so now I'm back with my old buddies. my all my old ways are right in front of me, but I'm changed. And so, one of the things we get involved with this great church and they got sports ministry. They're like, "You want to coach?" I'm like, "Oh, heck yeah. I want to coach. I love sports." And so, I start coaching my my little girl and starting with T-ball and soccer and flag football. And I'm loving this coaching. And meanwhile, my Black & Decker career is going great. And um so then they come to me and they're like, "Hey, what do you think about being a pastor? Like a youth pastor, sports pastor." like, man, if you know my story, uh, pastor is not in my vernacular. I love the sports ministry. I'm starting to get more leadership in the sports ministry and and that aspect. And, um, but then they met, they're like, "No, really, we we think this we think this is for you." Well, keep in mind with Black & Decker, I'm making a good income. I'm living in a house well beyond my means, right? Um, and I remember having a prayer with the Lord. I'm like, "Lord, I will do ministry if you could just let me stay in this house." And I'm not kidding you, I heard an audible laugh, an audible laugh from the Holy Spirit. Like, come on. Like, really? Come on. And uh so my pastor met with me and said, "Hey, I want you to pray about what it would take." And it was three things the Lord told me. Get closer to my wife. Stop traveling. Because I was still traveling like crazy. And downsize your house to more better size. So my wife and I start doing marriage counseling. And we have no problem. It's a beautiful time because we're just investing in our marriage. So we get closer. We put our house up for sale for a ridiculous amount. But my mind is if I sell this thing, I can go into ministry. I'll have so much money I can go into ministry. This would be great. Lord, this must be your plan. And I'm not stopping traveling. I'm still working black and decker. So this goes on for a year. And I felt like the Lord kept telling me the same three things. Great job getting closer to your wife. I told you to downsize your house. Your price too high, but I refuse to lower it. And you're not stopping traveling. So then comes 2008 and I'm working in Arizona for Blacknecker DeWalt who's in Baltimore, Maryland. and the housing crisis hits. And so I just won my third award. Everything is going great. And they called me and they said, "Hey, you need to move back to Baltimore, Maryland." And I always say it was the quickest, hardest decision I ever made cuz I'm like, "I'm not leaving Arizona. There's nothing you can do to get me to leave Arizona." All of a sudden, I'm like, "Uh, the Lord said, boom, travel stopped. Now you got to downsize your house." So I finally adjust the price on the house to a more affordable price. And within one week, we sell our house. And so then I go back to the church. I'm like, "Great news. All three things are checked off. I'm not traveling. I sold my house and my wife and I were closer than we've ever been. And they're like, we just filled the pastor position last week. And I'm like, we what? This is what I'm supposed to do. This is what we've been planning for. And they're like, it took you a year. We couldn't
Idaho Move: Career and Sports Ministry
wait anymore. And I'm like, Lord, I'm confused. And so my wife is always good about asking this question, too. Like, what would the Lord have to do to get you to move? Because remember I told you I didn't want to leave Arizona. And I was like, well, let me tell you, right? and I list out this ideal job that this is what I would love. This is what it's going to take. And it was so outlandish like there's no way it's going to happen. And then uh my sister-in-law who lived in Idaho, we lived up there and they moved. They're like, "Hey, there's a great job up here from Caterpillar, vice president of marketing. It's Caterpillar. I mean, bigger yellow and black tools and you should apply for it." So I'm like, "I'm gonna apply for it, but I'm not going to tell Amy because I don't I don't want her to get discouraged." So I apply for the job. I interview. So don't tell my wife I interviewed. go for a second interview. Goes well and they're like, "Hey, I think you need to come up here." And I'm like, "I think I need to tell my wife now." So, I tell Amy, I'm like, "Hey, listen. This Caterpillar dealer wants me to move. He wants me to interview." So, I fly back to Boise, which I already we already knew we love cuz we live there before with Black & Decker. And I get the job and it's a dream job. I'm an executive um with one of the largest Caterpillar dealers in the country. We love Idaho cuz we've lived there before. So, it's like this is awesome. I remember leaving my church in Arizona and I remember my pastor like like physically grabbed me and said, "Don't you dare go up there and look for a church that can do something for you. You go up there and look for something you can do for a church." And so we move up to Idaho and there was a church that was starting a program um called Upward Sports. And so we got involved with that church and I started getting involved with leadership with Upward Sports. And um they were doing really really well up there. I'm working for Caterpillar and I'm very purpose driven right now. Well, I'll tell you from a business perspective, I I start winning awards with Caterpillar for marketing that I'm not even trying for. Like the Lord was blessing upon blessing upon blessing and I'm involved with a great church, but
Using Work Resources to Build a Sports Field
the church had a problem. They had this they wanted to expand their programming, but they had this lot in the back and they just couldn't find money to do anything. They want to expand into soccer and flag football. They want to expand their sports ministry, but they just didn't have the money to clear the field and get it ready for that. So, by the way, I knew this issue when I moved there in 2009. And the whole time I was like, "Well, I don't know what we're going to do. I don't know what we're going to do." And we were doing good indoors. And finally, I feel like the Lord one time was like, "Hey, dummy. You work for a Caterpillar dealer." So, all of a sudden, I I get this Holy Spirit inspired vision of because where do you go demo? Bulldozers, motor graders. Where do you go demo that stuff? There's no place to go demo it. Well, now we have this back to the church lot. So I organized this huge demo and to demonstrate new technology for Caterpillar, what have you and all the gear is out there and we invite all these contractors to come and at the end of the day contractors heard where we were doing it, the vision of the church and so they said, "Well, after the demo, we'll just stay and level the field and get it ready for for grass fields." And so we have this huge demo. Caterpillar corporate out of Pory, Illinois recognizes like this was one of the coolest things ever done and we sell a lot of stuff which is good. So my local dealership's happy and we get left with this field that's primed for seeds to be planted and all of a sudden we we expand we explode our upward sports ministry.
Growth and Relocation to South Carolina
We become like the fifth largest league in the country. And my buddy that I was doing this with at the time was like hey you know Upward Sports out of Spartberg, South Carolina, they're looking for a vice president of marketing. And I'm like listen you know my story. I didn't move to Baltimore, Maryland. I'm not moving to some South Carolina backwoods place. There's no way. and they wouldn't hire me anyway being all the way from Boise, Idaho. He's like, "Well, I just need you to know I applied for you." So, my buddy applied for me for my job and then I get the phone call. I get the phone call like, "Hey, we we want to talk to you." And uh so I interviewed for the job and um lo and behold, I'm like, "This is crazy, honey." Like, "You want to move to South Carolina?" Like, we knew nothing about South Carolina at all, but we come out here and we are just in love with South Carolina. And so I'm working for Upward Sports and um and one of the things that's starting to
Marketing Meets Ministry at Upward Sports
prevail for me is I'm starting to get more of a ministry, more of a heart for ministry in this aspect of my own story. I started meeting a lot of people that would never walk through the doors of a church, but would come onto a field or court to play sports. When I was with Upward, I met this pastor from Brazil that said it best. He's like, "If I would have known then what and I know now, I wouldn't have built churches. I would have been fields and gyms because I walk out with a Bible and people run from me, but I walk out with a ball and people run to me. And the ministry opportunity I get through something as simple as a ball is is unbelievable. So now I'm really involved with Upward Sports. It's going great. But the company was on a little bit of a decline. And so they had me do this this marketing uh thing for them because I'm this executive that's come in. And one of the things they found out was these churches love the Upward program, but they were more interested in growing their church base than Upward Sports, if that makes sense. Um, so Upwards on this decline and um, just a few years after we moved out here, they had their first layoff ever. Well, I got caught up into
Career Shifts and COVID Challenges
that. And so, but we loved South Carolina, so we're like, we're not moving. It never even crossed our minds to move. And so, then I go on a series of jobs here in South Carolina, all connected back to connections I have with Black & Decker. One of those particular connections was just before CO broke out. So, I had some buddies of mine that uh had some technology. He called me up. He's like, "Hey, man. I got this product. It's uh it sprays disinfect." And this is before CO. So, at the time, I was like, "Who wants to spray disinfect them?" He's like, "It's new technology. Come work for me." I was like the fourth employee. So, I go work for him and and it's ground zero. I'm doing it out of here, traveling a little bit. Ground zero. But now, I'm surrounded with these believers. So, meanwhile, I'm still coaching. Even though I'm not with sports anymore, I'm still coaching, still loving that aspect. But I had this dream. And the dream was always like, if I could find a way to go coach full-time, I would do it. But it never was affordable. And I was always making good money that my wife was like, there's just no way that we can ever afford to stop doing what we're doing, and we're too comfortable. So, we weren't bold enough to make that that risk. So anyway, I go work from Victory and we go from this company of uh uh less than a million dollars and co hits and in one year we go from a $1 million company to a $300 million company. And as exciting as that was, as fast as it went up was also as fast as it went back down. But what it did also is it gave me, you know, I suddenly had some money in to like, well, maybe I could try to do something bold and radical. So I get another job with another Black & Decker connection and I'm back to traveling all the time. But
Rockbox Franchise: Rapid Growth, Financial Strain
one of the things that happened during COVID was I gained 40 lbs. And I remember walking my dog down the street and I got out of breath. I am an athlete. Like this is crazy. There was a little gym that opened up across the street from my house called Rockbox. I remember it's group fitness. I remember I'm like that is so out of my league. I don't really care about that. But what was interesting at that time is as I was traveling there's rock boxes everywhere I was going. So, I started going to these rock boxes and what I started seeing was people that were hurting and rocking workout experience was fine, but nobody was really investing to them. So, I really felt like the Lord was like, "Hey, this might be where I want your ministry to go. Why don't you own one of these? Why don't you give up all the comfort of this, but there was a promise of income with a franchise?" And so, I'm working out one time and I'm like, "Lord, is this really what you want me to do?" And the Holy Spirit, as you can hear, has always been very good about speaking to me in key moments. And I'm working out one time and all I keep hearing over and over again is rely on Christ your king because of the cross. It got to a point I got to make sure I don't get emotional on this one. Like I started getting annoyed with the Holy Spirit. Like annoying. Like I get it. You don't have to keep telling me. I I hear you. I'm working out here. You don't have to keep saying that. And the Holy Spirit's like look at the bag. Rely on Christ your king spells rock because of the cross spells rock box. You know box. And I just start weeping. Okay Lord here we go. And so the blessing of the money that we got with Victory, we put into investing into this franchise. And so we jump into this and I would just say the franchise world wasn't what it deemed to be, but I was ministry-minded and we grew it from 60 members to 180 members. We tripled it in a year, but it just wasn't profitable. Just put a little pause on that story. Meanwhile,
Reassessing the Franchise Dream
my beautiful twin daughters have these boys that they love. Faith marries this gentleman named Braden. Both my daughters played volleyball. Faith has a similar vision of mine. Would love to go coach. Don't know how to make it work. So Braden is just the entrepreneurial tenacity. He's we're gonna we're gonna do this. You know, I've been involved with the volleyball world up here. It's like, okay, Braden. So, but he he pushes forward. He starts doing grass tournaments and, you know, he starts up legacy and he's and he has guys teams and he's just pushing forward just with reckless abandonment. He's just we're going to do this, pops, we're going to do this. We're going to do this. I'm like, you're crazy. But the idea behind Rockbox and buying into the franchise dream back to that was that was supposed to be a franchise where we made a lot of money that I can work on the business but not in the business so that my time can be free to go coach. But the franchise just sucked me in. And it's as crazy as it sounds to bring you up to
Creating a New Sports Experience
the to the reality of November comes around and we were subleasasing from the original owners of Rockbox and they decided they didn't want to subleasase anymore. So all of a sudden we went from pushing forward to you got two weeks to get out of this. And it was just it was so up in the air. But then Braden came to me and was like, "Hey, this is our chance. This is our chance for you to jump right into what you've always wanted to do. Now you can at least start making some money." And Amy's like, "I like this idea. Now we jumped right in. I mean, this was crazy. This is back in November. And so all of a sudden, then we started dreaming and vision casting. We wanted to always create a different experience because the sports culture and you I've talked a lot about this is broken. I mean, I haven't even gotten into this in the story, but it's just so broken. Family units are compromised. Churches are being compromised all because of sports. Barner research will tell you a few things. One, 90% of Americans are influenced by sports every day. And then the other thing that's a big thing from the Barner research is as it pertains to coming to Christ is it's a race to the heart of the child. And the first one there wins. And so by the time they're age 13 or 14, if they haven't made that decision to give their life to Christ, the reality is it's going to be more difficult for them as an adult. So part of that is for us, I want I wanted to change that landscape. Rewind a little bit in the story when when I got let go from Upward Sports, I did get on the board for Upward Stars, which was their performance side, and I loved it. But one of the things that I realized from the ministry aspect of that was all these people are chasing this dream of a D1, D2, D3 scholarship. And we did this research project that showed that 90% of those athletes quit after the first year. Could there be something different? And a lot of these clubs catered to the top teams, the best athletes in there. Like, but what about everybody else that just wants to play and have fun because there's so much value in team sports. So the vision we always had was how do we put together a program that would model the life of Jesus. So in the Bible there's only one verse that talks about Jesus from the time he's 13 to 30 and it's Luke 2:52 and it talks about how Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. So Jesus grew mentally, he grew athletically, he grew spiritually and he grew socially. So we thought, hey, that model works so well. Why not make the very model for what we do for legacy? And the word legacy, as Braden had come up with the name of the of the club, is the legacy, not for us, but the legacy for Christ, an eternal legacy. And so that's what we we started that legacy with. Let's just be different. We're anticipating we're going to have boys programs. We're so excited. I'm leaving Rock Box now. I'm so excited. I'm like, "All right, Lord, this new direction." And I've had a lot of lessons from Rockbox that I've taken with me in the legacy, too. But all of a sudden, like there's not a lot of boys that show up. We thought we were going to be a boys driven program. And all of a sudden there's not a lot of boys showed up. I can't handle much more. Like I mean just rock box just happened. We didn't get the turnout for the boys. This is crazy. But the next day is the girls tryyous and we were thinking we were going to have one or two girls teams and we have a 100 girls show up and we're like this is crazy. But what happened with those hundred girls showing up is all of a sudden we knew we were a new club. We knew we were a new club that nobody knew about. A lot of skepticism about it. And we started hearing stories from these girls. these stories of being rejected by other clubs. They weren't tall enough. They weren't fast enough, but but they just want to play and they also wanted exactly what we were talking about of developing that athlete pointing to Christ first. So, we're not a volleyball club that does ministry. We're a ministry that does volleyball, right? All of a sudden, these these these ladies want to come play for us. And so, we we get six teams in there. So, here becomes this vision. This is how the Lord's been blessing us. Our main job right now is doing this long enough in sports is this. We got to invest in the coaches. We're a
Launching Legacy with Coaches and Athletes
disciplehip program. It's as much as I want to look at the athletes, I want to look at my six coaches that lead these teams. And that was the other thing I thought was missing in youth sports is we care about the kids, but a lot of times we have more kids show up than we can handle. And we volunteer to get involved with them. But everything starts with a coach. The impact a coach can have on a player. And one season is more than most people have on them in a lifetime. So I always tell parents, you cannot afford to put your child onto a team with a coach that you don't line up with the values and what they're going to do because of the impact it'll have on your daughters. So when we started Legacy, even before we had the triyouts, it all started with the coaches. We had to have like-minded people that knew that they were on a mission field to go further the kingdom of Jesus um through something as simple as a ball. And we found those coaches. And so we were excited when we had triyouts come in and then we started making these six teams. But then here was the vision we had with these six teams. Starts with the six coaches. We have 65 athletes right now. 65 families which all have stories. So we're three weeks into the season right now that all have stories. But then we go to these tournaments. Our six teams have played a hundred different teams. We pray with these teams. We we act differently around these teams. We compete differently around these teams. And so that influence, that ripple effect is 2500 people that we've had direct influence with and go back to those six coaches. That's what I tell them is like that's the ministry opportunities that are in front of us. And I'll say other things that have happened for us in these first three weeks. Do we have problems within their club? Yep, we do. And so it's not that
Local Focus and Parent Considerations
the worldly problems have shifted because we're this faith-based club, but how we're handling them, that's what becomes different. I really feel like the Lord's like, I got you right where I want you. And now now watch what happens. And that's that vision cast of legacy. And so that's what's led us to to where we are today. That's what we're super excited about for the future. That's good cuz there is shorten short and long-term stuff. I would tell you this too, going going back to this making sure that we remain a ministry that does volleyball, not volleyball that does ministry. But with that comes a certain thing, and you can call it the apologetics approach. Like we've got to make sure that we're doing good deeds to earn goodwill to share the good news. Like I mean we've got to know the sport. We got to play to compete. Scripture tells us that, right? To compete as if you're competing for the Lord. So the dayto-day for me, I'll just give you my my my personal thing is I focus on the coaches. Keep in mind, too, these coaches, they work full-time jobs. Like I get the blessing of doing this full-time right now, but a lot of my coaches, they're they work a 8 toive job and then they come coach. So I want to make it as easy for them as possible so that they can deliver a great experience so that that opens that opportunity for them to share the good news. We are partnering with the parents. I mean the parents have made a big investment. Again, I go back to the brokenness of you sports. It's so expensive to play club ball, travel ball. It's just expensive. So, we want to make sure we're offering a different experience, too. So, we don't travel as much. There's so much great volleyball up here. We don't need to travel as much. So, we try to stay local between here, Rock Hill. We got a few tournaments we travel to, but we also don't want to put that strain and burden on to the parents. There's so much that parents
Integrating Faith into Competition
are wanting to do for their kids, but we also want to make it close enough where they can go to church on Sundays if they want to, or they could still do family things and moms and dads don't have to be separated. So, we try to keep that all into consideration as well. The other day-to-day stuff is just we actually have multiple divisions within we we talked a lot about the club teams, but the other thing that I also get very very excited about is on Mondays and Thursdays we have our club practices, but on Thursday evenings we have open gym. So open gym invites adults from the upstate to come in and we've got the largest adult open gym. I don't call it a league cuz it's not a league, it's just open gym, but we got the largest one in the upstate and there's so many other places that they can go. It's not like there's another other options, but they choose to come to us. These folks that are walking through those doors probably aren't walking through the doors of a church, but they'll walk in to come play volleyball. And then we have a guy that leads it out there, one of our coaches, where he is witnessing and sharing a devotion and sharing scripture every night to over 100 adults. And so they're just they're feeling more comfortable with that. And then they go play volleyball. Almost the very same experience I had in Gig Harbor, Washington. And I know some are coming like, why are we praying before we play? But here's our leader out there. like he's a he's a he's a he's a man's man and he's leading well. It's
Private Lessons as Discipleship
just an opportunity for them to to hear the gospel and and for some of them that's their church. So we have that. We also do tournaments sometimes grass tournaments or sometimes be indoor tournaments again an opportunity for folks to come together. Um and what's neat about that is they get to invite their friends to come in. We want to provide opportunities whether it be open gym or little tournaments like hey man come come check out this legacy stuff. When you walk in they welcome you. They're so happy to see you. Like, it's just a different experience when you walk into one of our legacy events just because we're just we make you feel welcomed, appreciated. We're hopefully giving you some inspiration and just confident that you're going to have a great great time. So, between the open gyms and the tournaments and obviously our club teams, um we're starting to do private lessons right now, which that becomes even more disciplehip. So, when you do a private lesson with one of our coaches, like yes, we're going to do
Future Vision for Volleyball Ministry
volleyball, but we're also going to talk about your mental state. We're also going to talk about your relationship with the Lord. Making sure that you understand. If I go back to Luke 2:52, the idea of it would be this. The the mental aspect is we want to help you make smart decisions on and off the court. We want to help you get better athletically for sure. And that's what people think that's what the main lesson is about, but we're talking about decisions, but also the spiritual aspect of you're not identified by the sport. Whether you win or lose or you're 67, this doesn't define you. Whether you can attack a ball, serve a ball, this is not your identity. We really try to emphasize that throughout every single one of our programs. And so when we take that approach, whether it be a private lesson or in a team or open gym, it really does stand out. Even our open gyms, we do old school pick, schoolyard pick, and then halfway through we reshuffle and repick again. So just mixing up. So people are starting to meet people, love people for where they are and who they are. And it's just a lot of fun. And in that aspect of fun, it opens that opportunity, that door to share that gospel. for us, that's our church, that's our home. And so, we're just trying to do things differently. So, that's the short term we're at right now. But, we do have big visions for we'd love to go into the future, Lord willing. Um, you know, how we can further that gospel, that ministry. And so, that's that's exciting. We're so blessed where we're at today, but we're so in eager anticipation for where the Lord might be bringing us to the future.
Facility Needs and Community Partnerships
I would say this, you know, part of the challenge of everybody here in the upstate is finding a place to play, right? It's there's lots of opportunities that players want to play, but places to play is very, very challenging. We're very, very fortunate to be partnering with the global academy and making that our home, but at the same time, we can expand that ministry if we had other places to play, but there's still a need in there, right? They have concrete floors on there. They got all the old school AAS lines down there. Like, we've got to we've got to upgrade that. And so our dream, our short-term dream, which we think we can have happen soon, is we want to put sports court down in there. Sports court down in there because then it'll become a twocore facility that we can start doing more intentional private lessons in, group lessons in, maybe some agility stuff in, stuff that we could cuz right now we share the global academy. As much as we love calling that our home, they have other programs in there. The school uses it. But at the Riverside Baptist Church, that could be we can leave our stuff there. I don't got to bring in my truck every time. We can leave our stuff there and just run more programmings out of there. Um, and truth be told, I like that it's tied into a church. I like that there's a church right there. So, if someone really needs a place to come, they they have a place and like come here on Sundays. One of the things we're starting to do back at the global academy is we're actually starting to bring in pastors from local churches from around the area just to come give a little 15 20 minute motivational inspirational thing uh before our practices on Mondays but also to give an option to both our players and their families and the open gym like if you're looking for a place you are welcome because we thought it would be good for for us just to have that opportunity for a place to go. So that's that's what we like about the two places we're at. And one of the things we want to be very careful about and maybe you could talk me out of this in a different way, but the best thing about the global academy is also this because it's so big with with six courts um that we have really we could go up to eight courts. We get to come together and there's something powerful before every one of our practices for your club. We bring all 65 together and we we prayed up 65 people and then we break it down and that's just energy. open gym and it's hundred adults there and we prayed and we're right there. There's energy. What we be careful about is we we want to be able to go to other gyms and go to other places, but when you don't have the space, it's tough sometimes to have that unity, but at the same time, the value of a lot of that then became the disciplehip afterwards. So, we love having the big space so that we can get the hype and the excitement of being a part of something bigger than ourselves, but we also like having the ability to have a a smaller, more intimate place that we can do more practical stuff from a training perspective, but also more intentional like disciplehip and ministry. So, it's nice having both of those. That's in the short term. Eventually, plant the seed right now. We'd love to have our own facility. But um so right now, let's just talk about you talked about the the the immediate need. The way we're structured, we got Mondays and Thursdays at the global academy, and that's great. The reality is we could do more days there. Financially, the way we're set up right now, we we can't like So that would be I know we haven't gotten into fundraising yet, but we would love to find a way to have someone come beside us and say, "Hey, listen. If I gave some money and you can get an extra night there to reach more people, I'm in for it. Here's a crazy short-term vision. If we can make it happen, is there's lots of tournaments that happen in that location that we don't play in. So, our legacy volleyball teams are not playing in them. However, we would love to have a Friday night before the Saturday and Sunday tournament where we rent the place and we bring in music and worship and we invite all the other clubs from the area to just come in and we have a little worship night and maybe we feed them some food and and we just love on them. It's never been done before. It would be a radical way to do it. I don't know if it'd be successful, but the Lord's put that on our heart. But again, that would be something where we'd have to have somebody that had some money be like, I'm willing to invest into that. And then ultimately have a worship band come in and I'll lead worship in that. And just real authentic um just loving on people and saying showing how is so much more than volleyball. That would be neat to have it from from that perspective. I'll tell you this, this this bridges, you're going to be like, man, you're all over the place. We were at a tournament this past weekend um and we were getting ready to compete for the gold medal.
Playing with an Eternal Perspective
Here's the reality that's set upon us. Here's what everybody's there for. This $2 goldplated cheap metal is what we're competing for. Like, let's just put the reality into what we're competing for. That's it. And yes, it's the thrill of winning, but what are they holding up? This this metal. And most of those people are probably going to be just like me. They win it the one time, they're like, "Oo, I want another one of these cheap medals." But we prayed for the team before we went to the championship game because we we were blessed to have success. We prayed for this. Let's ball out to compete for this cheap $2 gold play of medal. But can we keep in perspective that what the word tells us is we're going to walk the streets of gold someday. That's what we're competing for. And you know what's good news? Let me share the great news with you. We've already won. When you give your life to Christ, we've already won. So let us go play now with that reckless abandonment of like we've won regardless of what the score is. And yes, it'll be nice to have a little
Beyond Medals: Relationships and Vision
trinket, but listen, most adults, ask them, "Hey, tell me about your high school career, your middle school career, and they'll tell you about whatever success they had." I'm like, "Hey, where are those medals now?" "Oh, they're in my attic. They're in a garage. They're collecting dust. I threw them away. I gave them to Goodwill." Like, really, that's that's where they're at. But when you really ask people, and we say this all the time, too. Fast forward maybe a week for some, a year for most, five years for all. Hey, do you remember the score of that game? No. What do you remember? I remember how happy my parents were. I remember whether you win or lose, by the way. I remember my parents just saying, "I love watching you play. I remember my teammates. I remember what this just happened to a team this weekend. They were the last team in the gym. Didn't get done till 11:00 at night and they went went to Waffle House afterwards and they were laughing and having a good time." They're going to remember that moment over the fact that they whatever the score, the game was that they were just in the gym at, they'll remember the moments. And I think that's the sweetness of what sports has the opportunity if we let it to happen. And then the other thing we share with parents is this. You're blessed to watch your daughter or son play this sport. And that joy that you get watching them is a gift from God because this is not a stretch. Just think about this. Your heavenly father is watching you adults do what you do every day. Be a mom. Be a dad. Work at this location wherever you work. Whatever you do, he is so loving watching you. His you're his child. He loves watching you. And he gives you that glimpse through watching your kids play. Don't lose out on that blessing. Just watch and love your child playing something that they enjoy doing. Don't put the pressure on them. Don't put rules upon them. Don't just love watching them. And then just remember that the Lord's watching you going, "You're my child." I mean, that's your heavenly father, right? And so those parents that can put that into perspective suddenly enjoy this whole experience a lot more. Those parents that because of our travel schedule can go to church on Sunday with their family enjoy this experience a lot more. So that's why we want the ability to have enough facilities here. Going back to your original question, having places we can play right here that we don't got to travel far. We can still be very competitive right here. We want to play well with the other clubs in the area. We want to help serve the other clubs in the area. Um so that we can just unify and just change the landscape of youth sports. I mean, that would be great to be able to do that. And and it does start with facilities. And so places to play is is a is a big thing for us. And and that's where, you know, if we're blessed with resources and have more places to play, then we can really cascade this this God-given vision to to more places. So, there's multiple ways.
Connecting and Getting Involved
Social media, I mean, you can come watch us, get a little glimpse behind. Our website is another one that upstate legacyv.com is another good that has our core values and our mission statements. That's really good. But if someone actually wants to get involved, there's I start from the simplest for let's just talk about for youth. Um we dommies. So they're not teams or just basic entry level beginning fundamentals really just developing a love for the game. So you can domies. We'll have clinics. Maybe that's some maybe next level advanced stuff. Our clinics are always open to anybody. You don't got to be a legacy player legacy. You can you can be a part of another club and come to our clinics. Um, then we have our travel teams obviously and then tournaments. We have fun little tournaments that are just fun, right? Nob- brainer fun tournaments. Then when you go to adults, probably very similar. We got tournaments. Um, we do some private lessons, which we do for youth. We also do it for adults, too, cuz there are some adults that like never been taught volleyball. We do a private lesson with me. So, they can do that private lessons as well. And then our open gyms, our open gyms are probably the easiest, safest way for adults kind of pop in and just check out what we're what we're about. So, we're just trying to provide avenues of fun that people feel very very safe coming into and and there's all different levels. So, we'll start with the website upstatelegacyvb.com. Um, and there you can really get in touch with everything else from there. All of our social media is on there. On Instagram, we have two. We have Legacy VB, which is our adult, and then we have Legacy Volleyball, um, which is the club side. So we tried to separate those two so the adults can see what's happening with the adults, the youth can see what's happening in the youth. Same thing with Facebook page. Uh for us, you can always email um us, you know, info@ upstateleacvb.com uh to to get any further information. Again, everything's on our website. Makes it very very simple to get in touch with us. We would love for folks to reach out to us so we can engage in a conversation. Our four are very simple like our core values which we haven't
Engaging Through Relational Ministry
really talked about. I mean the foundation of everything is we pray often. I mean, we start there. So, praying is is a big deal. Relational ministry is is a big deal. Like, we want we want the one-on-one. We don't want to be get so big, and we haven't vision cast for the future yet. We don't want to get so big that we lose that aspect of it. We want to make sure we have relational ministry. The other thing is we we we work hard. I mean, we're going to compete. Sometimes I've seen this a lot. When people hear a faith-based sports club, they're like, "Well, they're not going to win very much." But we are going to compete as if we're running the race to win. You know, those those values become so so important to us. We don't want to lose we don't want to lose sight of that. But the relational ministry is a big deal. So you ask how to get in touch with us, we want to engage in that conversation with
Coaching Philosophy Beyond X’s and O’s
we want to have conversations with people. Um whether it be about volleyball or ministry or whatever, whatever it might be, we can always arrange a meeting with somebody. But if you want to just stop in and just take a peek at what it's like Mondays and Thursdays from call it that 8 to 11 at the global academy is a great great chance to peek in. We talk a lot about with our coaches as much as we talk about the ministry impact. It's not our job to save people like Jesus doesn't need us right. Our job is to continue to show his love, mercy and grace to others so that they seek to want to know more and that that ownership to what you just alluded to to want to go seek Jesus more. And there's plenty of moments, by the way, in sports. There's plenty of moments even that have happened in these first three weeks, like like we do honor calls, like when you play against one of our teams and a girl touches the ball and the ref doesn't see it and gives the point to us when it should be theirs. We'll we'll go tell the ref like, "Hey, we touched that." And and it's crazy because these refs like, "Wait, what? Why would you do that? Like, I gave you the point." Well, we always talk about there's no honor in winning and cheating. I'd rather lose with integrity than than than win with by cheating knowing we have our players that are starting to embrace that, you know, for the most part our coaches don't argue calls either like it it is what it is, you know, and uh and just that that difference to your point like when people see that and then they tell the then the stories get told like hey remember that time that's where that opportunity that's where the sweetness comes in. I really do believe that aspect of it and then the other thing too we're meeting I keep saying we're meeting people where they're at. There's a lot of people that are hurting. They just they're hurting. You know, they're in such critical parts of their lives right now. Um there's so many broken families and so when we hear the stories that are out there, you know, sometimes if there's an athlete that's having struggles and you really take the time to hear their story, has nothing to do with volleyball, maybe they're having trouble at home, maybe they just got a bad grade, maybe they're an argument with their boyfriend, whatever it might be. How do you just love them in those moments? Right? That's that's the beauty of all of this. And again, I used Billy Graham before quote, the reason he says the coach can have more impact on the player in one season than in a lifetime is right, wrong or indifferent in today's culture, when you put coach on somebody, that gives you instant authority. That gives you instant ability to speak into their lives, good or bad. And you know, I didn't even share this part of me like when people ask me like, "Well, tell me there's a there's a book out there called The Greatest Coach, Joe Man. Played for the Baltimore Colts." Just to age it, right? It's it's old, right? But he says these things for parents. So, you got to ask these questions to a coach before you dare put your child on that team. Why do they coach? What's it like to be coached by them? What's their coaching philosophy? And how do you basically want them to feel afterwards? And if you don't like those answers, you cannot afford to put your child onto that team. And he talks about, forget coaching the X's and O's. you got to be the why behind the coaching because of that impact and so we share that a lot with
Purposeful Coaching and Personal Stories
our coaches too like your heart has to be right and what it forced me to come back to this is why do I coach right that's the question that came back to me and I coached for two reasons one was I remember I was playing t-ball we're farm league 9 10 years old and back in the time my coach was owned the largest upholstery company in Phoenix Arizona Beacon upholstery I remember it to this day and I'm watching TV at home and I see my coach on TV with the phone number for Beacon Upholstery and I call it and I don't remember the question I asked, but I remember making the phone call and the secretary answering and I'm like, "Is Coach Beacon there?" And I can I remember the hesitation in her voice like, "Um, hang on a minute." And she gets the owner of this large company on the phone with this little 10-year-old little David Reimann. And I don't remember the question I asked him, but I remember he made me feel like a million bucks. He talked to me. He took time out of his busy day out of the work to just have a moment with me for whatever. Am I playing left field? Am I going to play short? Whatever question I asked him. But I remember that feeling of like that was so cool to see my coach on TV and that he talked to me. But then I also remember coach Danforth in my high school year freshman year trying out for baseball. I can tell you the smell of the I smell the grass and I get cut from my baseball team freshman year and I go coach Danforth why did I get cut? And I'm ready for things like you couldn't hit the curveball. You you couldn't make the throw from third base to first on time. I I was prepared for that. And he told me, "You're too short." And and I remember like I can't do anything about that. That's the reason you come here because I'm too short. And it devastated me. Like I never tried out for another team again ever because I in my mind I'm not going to put myself through that embarrassment and getting that feedback of something I can never do. So when it came time to put my daughters in sports, I originally started coaching because I didn't want them to go through that. What I didn't realize without really good training is I was that yelling coach. I was that I was that coach Danforth. And so once I got that perspective from Joe Irman, it changed a lot. And it was like now I coach for a completely different reason. I want them to love the game. I want them to want to come back next season. And and then when I gave my life to the Lord, then I started coaching because I want to do it just like Jesus did. grow mentally, athletically, spiritually, socially. Like, that means more to me than than anything. And I'll tell you another story. This just happened. A parent call me from a player that I coached years
Legacy: Love, Faith, and Sports Culture
ago. She is married and she just went through something tragic in her life. And she when she was the dad had called me to say she asked, "Daddy, will you call coach David and ask him to pray for me?" Like, by the way, when this girl played for me, we were an average team. probably won half of our games. But here's this lady 10 years later and just went through something tragic in her life and one of her requests was, "Hey, can you call coach David?" She didn't feel comfortable talking to me about what was going on, but her dad reached out to me. And I remember telling my coaches, "That's why you're coaching." That 10 years later when something happens, that athletes going to be like, "I I got to call my coach." And every year I try to reach out to all my former athletes that I've ever coached, especially during triyout season. Just want to let you know I'm praying for you. let you know you're loved. And they always were like, "Well, coach, I'm I'm not playing anymore." And I would always I always respond back, "I told you it was more than volleyball." And listen, I'm not telling you I did everything perfect either. I'm sure there's other people on the flip side be like, "Man, I don't want to, you know, Coach David, man, he was he was a little hard on me or whatever, whatever it might be. I'm not saying it's perfect every time, but you know, Lord willing, we're just trying to like we just want to be different." Our sports culture makes that hard to do when it's all about win at all cost, you know, no matter what it takes. Um I want to be on the best team. I want to be on the top team. And but really at the end of the day, they just want to they just want to enjoy playing. And there's research out there, by the way. There's there's four things I'll I'll speak to them quickly. And this would be advice for any youth sports program out there. It's four things people really want. At the end of the day, these players want to feel welcomed. They want to feel appreciated. They want to be inspired. And they want to feel confidence. If you can deliver those four things, doesn't matter whether you win every game or lose every game, it's all they really really to be noticed, to be loved. That's it. So whether it's us or anybody else, you want the secret formula, welcome to appreciate, inspired, and confident. Show them the love of Jesus and they're going to love playing for your program.
