There was just one time when the line between husband and assistant coach was blurred.
“We had a referee who got a little disrespectful towards me and Brian kind of forgot he was in a coaching environment and the husband hat came on,” recalled Sarah Cameron.
“So instead of thinking like a coach, he thought like a husband.”
Cameron coaches the Brookswood Bobcats junior girls basketball team alongside her husband, Brian Smith, who is the assistant.
While Cameron did enjoy having her honour defended, she probably didn’t like the technical foul that her husband picked up.
But besides that, it has been pretty smooth sailing for the pair as they navigate the sidelines side-by-side.
The fact they are coaching basketball together should come as little surprise, considering the sport is also how they met.
Cameron, who is from Langley and a 2004 Brookswood Secondary graduate, moved to Kamloops to play for the Thompson Rivers University for her post-secondary career.
The men’s and women’s basketball team had a social activity that first week of school and that is where she met Smith, a second-year member of the WolfPack men’s team.
The pair began dating in February of 2005 and were married three-and-a-half years ago.
Smith played four years in Kamloops while Cameron played five, leaving her mark all along the program’s record book, including second on the all-time scoring list.
Smith was no slouch either, as his name is also atop the career scoring list for Thompson Rivers.
They did coach together for one year in Kamloops with the WolfPack men’s program with Smith working with the players, and Cameron doing more video work.
When they returned to the Lower Mainland, Cameron began helping out at her alma batter with the junior girls team. And a short time later, she was given the chance to take over the team.
For Cameron, it was a no-brainer.
All through high school, Cameron had coached with Brookswood’s Friday Night Hoops program and during her Grade 12 year, helped coach the junior girls team.
“I was always interested in coaching,” she said.
“It was always something I figured I would do down the road.”
Her husband — who had done some volunteer coaching at his old high school in Maple Ridge — was not looking to coach junior girls basketball but with only one car, he was driving her to practice anyways.
Soon, the pair were coaching together.
“Really, I just dragged him into it,” Cameron said with a laugh.
“’If I am doing this, then you are too.’”
Cameron is the head coach while Smith serves as her assistant, but she said their roles are constantly changing and they are more like co-coaches.
At the start of each season, they let all of their players and their parents know that they are married, so everybody knows.
They did share one story about a player who thought the coaches should date, since they seemed to have a connection.
“I should hope so,” Cameron said with a laugh.
Besides giving back to the sport they love, the couple are just happy that they have a passion which allows them to spend time together.
“It gives us something additional to do together,” Smith said.
“No one is sitting at home, waiting for the other person to get home or feeling like they are doing all the stuff at home because the other person is coaching.”
“We get to see each other,” Cameron added. “Coaching takes up a lot of time.”
They estimated that any given week during the season consists of about 12 to 15 hours of basketball time.
Both are grateful they have employers — she works in human resources for Sleeman Breweries while he works for B.C. Assessment — who provide them with flexibility.
And coaching is a wonderful way to give back to a sport that has given them each so much.
“Basketball is obviously something that brought us together initially,” Cameron said. “(The game) has been such a big part of our lives.
“And we both had the benefit of playing for some pretty talented and committed coaches and it is a nice way for us to enjoy the game that gave us a lot of opportunity.”
Cameron played for long-time Brookswood coach Neil Brown while Smith was under long-time Maple Ridge coach Ken Dockendorf, who has been a coach at the school since 1970.
“I want them to stay busy, so they can’t have kids,” said Brown, as he ducked into the Brookswood PE office.
“We have enough players, we don’t have enough coaches.”
Michelle Schwingboth www.plushphoto.ca
