Sarah Emerson is her father's daughter. She's reminded of that every time she watches him coach a high school fastpitch game.

As a spectator she still finds herself repeating the same motivating words that he once used with her on the field. Two years removed from playing for him at Sehome High School, she knows when a bunt is coming, what pitch is next and who the cut-off person should be when a ball is hit in the gap.

It's the same way he taught the game to her for so many years, first as a youngster on a Bellingham Boys and Girls Club team and eventually for three years at the high school level.

"It's something that I can look back on and know that we probably wouldn't be as close as we are now without that experience," said Sarah Emerson, a student at Western Washington University. "Ultimately it was a really positive experience. We did have some really rough days, but overall there was a lot more positive than negative."

The challenge of coaching young adults to success in athletics is complicated. It's an often unsteady formula of patience, discipline, motivation and, hopefully, some fun. It's the teaching of numerous skills in an emotionally charged environment with a scoreboard that tallies basic successes and failures one point at a time. Add a family dynamic to the puzzle when a son or daughter is on the roster, and the task can be even more challenging.

The trials are many when a parent begins coaching their own child. The balancing of on-the-field expectations with off-the-field parenting commitments, all while trying to maintain a healthy relationship, can be trying on any parent-coach and child.

Though as challenging as it can be, the reward is also great. And for a handful of high school and youth coaches around Whatcom County, it's an experience they couldn't imagine having not shared with their children.

"I think it really was a good thing for us," Jim Emerson said. "It's not an easy situation on either side all of the time, but it was good. The biggest challenge was always to separate yourself as the parent and the coach."

Being a parent first -- and coach second -- When the Mount Baker girls' wrestling team won a state championship this winter with a dramatic pin in the championship round, Coach Ron Lepper and daughter Alex shared a long embrace that nearly brought both to tears.

The team title was the reward that both had hoped for when Alex, a 135-pound senior on the team, talked her dad into letting her start a girls' program at the school three years prior. Both were proud of the accomplishment. Both also were a little relieved.

Though Alex had helped start the program and was passionate about the sport, she wasn't the best wrestler on the team. After failing to place at state as an individual wrestler, both wanted to have something tangible to show for all of her hard work.

"For me, I know that if we hadn't won the title at state it would have killed him to see me go through that because I didn't place," Alex Lepper said. "He knew how hard I'd worked at wrestling the last three years, just trying to get a girls' program started and then keep it going. After all of the time I'd put in I didn't really have anything to show for it up to that point."

"Just knowing that he was the one that told me that I could start it and that he was the first one to kind of back it, was really cool."

The title capped an interesting and sometimes exhausting wrestling season for Ron Lepper. Having two children on the wrestling team — his son Zak was a freshman on the varsity team this season who wrestled at 103 pounds — proved to be a constant emotional juggling act.

As a coach and as a father he wanted his children to have individual and team success in the sport because that's what they desired. But when that success came while the team he coached struggled, or vice-versa, it could be a challenge to reconcile the two.

"We wrestled Blaine in a dual this year and really got it handed to us, but my son won," Ron Lepper said. "I really wasn't very happy with the result and how the team wrestled. Then as I sat back it helped knowing that my son wrestled well and did his job to help us win."

"On the other side, we won the state team title in girls' wrestling this year in exciting fashion. As a dad there was a part of me that wasn't completely into it because my daughter didn't place at state. I knew that was something she had strived for and worked toward and she came up a match short. Looking at her and knowing that she wasn't able to reach a goal she had set for herself was tough. At the same time I was happy for her and for the team for winning that title."

Lepper's struggle to reconcile the differences between being a coach and a parent isn't uncommon for the people in his position. He goes through it in the fall during the football season while he's coaching Zak, in the winter with wrestling, and in the spring when he's coaching Alex through softball season.

It's a balance the Emersons strived to achieve during Sarah's playing days as well.

"There were times when he would kind of transition between being a dad and being a coach," Sarah said. "We worked at having that boundary. There were times during a game when he would come to me and say ‘I want to talk to you as your Dad,' or ‘I want to talk to you as your coach.' That's something that helped me."

As much as it can be a challenge at times, Lepper wouldn't trade the experience he's shared with his children. He considers coaching his children a privilege not every parent has. He's looking forward to continuing to work with Zak in football and wrestling, and his two younger daughters, Raney and Maxxine, if they choose to pursue a sport he's coaching.

"I don't look at it from the standpoint that I have to coach them," Lepper said. "There are other coaches out there that might be able to do a better job with them. But I do look at it from a selfish standpoint because it's another two or three hours a day that I get to spend with them."

Lynden girls' soccer coach Cindy Watt is another who has accepted the challenge. She was careful to do some research before agreeing to coach her daughter Mackie's high school team two seasons ago. She talked to a few friends in coaching who have gone through a similar situation before deciding to make the leap.

"It's actually been pretty good, but when I first heard about the position I was very leery of coaching my own child," Cindy Watt said. "The expectations are greater at the high school level and there's more pressure on everyone. It wasn't the position as much as the impact it could have on my daughter, but she was actually excited about it."

COACH FIRST, PARENT SECOND

While striking the balance between being a parent first and a coach second can be precarious at times away from the field, at practice and during games it's easier to make the distinction.

Lepper said making sure his children understand coaching comes first when they are on the football field, the wrestling mat, or the softball diamond together is something that is intrinsically understood by his children. He hopes those he coaches understand that as well.

"The kids and I have never really talked about it," Lepper said. "But I think it's understood. They are my son and daughters, but they are still athletes on the team. In that atmosphere it's coach first and dad second."

For Jim Wilkerson, who has coached his daughter Austin's select-level fastpitch team for several seasons, the division of time between the team and his daughter is always a concern. While an interested parent who isn't coaching might be able to devote an hour or two of the day to helping a child improve at his or her chosen sports, a parent-coach like Wilkerson has to divide that time between all of the athletes on the team.

"I think there is always going to be a little bit of a jealousy issue," Wilkerson said. "Your kid wants you to help them and you have every one else on the team that needs your help too. Sometimes that idea that, ‘you're my dad, you should be helping me,' comes up. It's never been a major issue with us, but I know it has been for some parents who get into coaching. It's something you have to be aware of."

Wilkerson said it's helped him that Austin has been understanding of the time demands that are placed on him as a coach. She's always been willing to wait her turn with a question during practice or watch patiently as other players have their swings tinkered with.

Still, there were times when it was hard on both of them.

"The biggest thing for me is that she hasn't taken advantage of situation," Wilkerson said. "As a coach I know that she's going to be out there working just as hard as anybody else if not harder. In team meetings I know she's always going to be paying attention. You don't always get that from 12, 13 and 14-year olds. It makes everything easier when I know that she's setting that example."

For Austin, a freshman at Sehome High School, having her father as the coach of her USSSA teams has been a good experience. She's a dedicated softball player and having someone knowledgeable around to talk about the game has helped her reach some of her goals.

"For me, it's nice to have someone there all the time that can answer questions I might have about hitting or something like that," Austin said. "And when the team is together and other people have questions, I understand that even though he is my dad he has a responsibility to everyone on the team."

Communication breakdowns seem to come with the territory and the Watts have had their fair share. It has taken time for Mackie Watt, a junior at Lynden High School, to get used to viewing Cindy as her coach and not her mother.

"One of the things that first year that we had to work through is that when she would hear me giving her advice on the sidelines she would have trouble thinking of me as her coach and not just her mom," Cindy Watt said. "Mackie would tell me that what I was telling her was good advice, but she wasn't always doing it because she was just thinking of me as mom. I wasn't supposed to be the coach and the mom."

It's also taken Mackie some time to understand that the relationship she has with her mother can be different on the field than it is at home. She's conscious of the fact that she can be too opinionated at times and perhaps too vocal of it during games.

"There are times when I wish I didn't talk back as much as I do," Mackie said. "I'm a teenager and it's our natural instinct to talk back, but it's something I probably shouldn't do as much as I do during games."

For the Emersons, the positives have far out-weighed the negatives. Two years removed from playing for her father, Sarah and Jim still share a bond from that common experience found on the softball diamond. It's given them something to talk about that goes beyond how Sarah's classes are going in college.

"Balancing our relationship was a tough thing sometimes," Sarah said. "It was never really an issue when I was younger and playing with the Boys and Girls Club or a level like that, but when things got more competitive at the high school level there were times when it was made clear that he was my coach and not my dad in certain situations. I understood when that was happening and it was usually an unspoken thing between us."

LEAVING IT ALL ON THE FIELD

A constant challenge for both coaching parents and their children is establishing a clear line between when practice stops and family time begins. It can be easy to blur the two. The dinner table might turn into a basketball strategy session. A trip to the park can become an impromptu clinic on the finer points of open field tackling.

"I think sometimes it's hard for my Dad not to be a coach around us," Alex Lepper said. "You can always tell he's a coach, you can never make any mistake about that. And sometimes I think it's hard for him to just be a dad and not bring anything else into it. Separating school and sports, and sports and our home life can be tough because sometimes it seems like they are all pretty much the same thing."

It's something that might not be as big of a deal when a child is younger, but as a child gets older it can become important that boundaries are set to help separate the two elements of family and sport, Jim Emerson said.

"We were on the way home after a summer league game and Sarah had had a bad at-bat she was taking pretty hard," Jim Emerson said. "I started to talk to her about it, and she just said no, she didn't want to. We kind of set a boundary that night. If she wanted to talk about something we would. If she didn't want to talk about it, we didn't. That decision was up to her."

For Sarah, it took some time for her to adjust to having her Dad lead her high school team.

"There were times after a tough loss, especially when I was a sophomore, that I would get kind of jealous of my friends because they could go home and just leave it on the field," Sarah said. "They didn't have to over-analyze everything that happened on the field or go home to an upset coach. At the same time though, those are some of the things that I think brought us closer together as a father and daughter."

Just because boundaries have been discussed, it doesn't mean they automatically become a hard and fast rule, though. It's a constant challenge to leave the coaching for the field and the teaching for the classroom, Ron Lepper said. That's something that hasn't always gotten easier as his children have gotten older.

"I try really hard not to take it home," Ron Lepper said. "I think for the most part we're pretty good with that. You have to find that line. In a sense it's good because my wife and I are being active in our kids' lives instead of not caring what they are doing, but sometimes it's tough."

"I think I'm closer to finding that line, but I don't think you ever really stop searching for it. There are times when the best thing is to just keep your mouth shut, but that's not always easy either."

The Wilkersons have found that designating some time for cooling down can be a good thing. They sometimes spend a few quiet minutes on the way home after games to reflect, relax, and expunge.

"Usually we're able to leave it on the field," Jim Wilkerson said. "But sometimes a little quiet time is pretty good."

It can also be up to the child, particularly when they become teenagers, to help make sure what happens in practice, stays at practice. Sometimes, though, no matter how hard families try, practice time still spills over. That's something Alex Lepper has learned over the years.

"You do bring some stuff home sometimes, but for the most part we try to be pretty good about it," Alex said. "Because I've always been around it I don't have a lot to gauge it against. There are some times when you just don't want to talk about practice anymore. At the same time you've always kind of done it that way so you come to expect it."

Mackie Watt has found that in a household filled with soccer playing siblings and a coach, the game is never far from thought. That's something she appreciates.

"Soccer is our home life," Mackie Watt said. "I actually enjoy coming home and talking about the games. I think it helps me and it helps my mom vent a little bit. It's something I look forward to."

WEARING THE SAME NAME

For the families of a head coach at the high school level, sitting in the stands during a football game on a Friday night or in a crowded gym during basketball season can be an exercise in restraint. From the fans of the opposing team, to home-town hecklers, to the student body, everyone usually has an opinion on what should be happening on the field, and they are rarely afraid to share it.

For a coach, that passion and vitriol is an accepted part of sports in our culture. But for the child of a coach, sometimes it can be hard not to react.

"At football games when I was younger sometimes it was hard to deal with," Alex Lepper said. "It's better now that I sit in the student section, but even there people can be critical. I used to try to explain to some people the reasoning behind what was happening on the field, and that seemed to help, but people are always going to have something to say."

Being an athlete on the playing field can be even harder than sitting in the stands. Nepotism, and all of its ugly connotations, is something that many coaches' kids have to contend with at some time or another during their careers.

"When I was a freshman I was on the starting varsity fastpitch team and I caught a lot of criticism because I was the coach's kid," Alex Lepper said. "That was hard to hear when I was a freshman. I think what people didn't realize is that I started pitching and getting ready for the season in October. I started hitting in January. I played all summer, took a month off, and started working at it again. They didn't want to think I had earned that spot."

"My dad just kept telling me that if they came out to practice everyday and watched, they would understand. People just wanted to say that because I had the same last name as the coach I was a starting pitcher. I always had to prove to people that I deserved to be out there."

More often than not, coaching parents can find themselves being harder on their own kids than they are on the rest of the team when things aren't going right.

"I can't remember dealing with any favoritism issues when I was playing, and if there was, nobody really brought it up with me," Sarah Emerson said. "If anything I think my Dad was harder on me than the other girls on the team — sometimes I think that was to prove a point."

Along with handling occasional cries of favoritism from parents or players, high expectations can be another burden placed on coaches' kids. People can expect the child of a coach to be the best player on the field if for no other reason than they are related to the one calling the shots. If the child isn't the best, people sometimes wonder why.

"I think some people think if that is the son or daughter of the coach out there they should be a stud," Ron Lepper said. "I think there's a lot of pressure that goes with that. I've never thought that way, my wife has never thought that way, but some people do."

Being the child of a coach also can come with a certain level of responsibility. Because the parent is a representative of the school where they work, and in some regard a public figure, the child can face the same expectations. That can mean greater scrutiny and sometimes higher standards.

"There's definitely an expectation that you're going to behave yourself and work hard in class no matter what class it is," Alex Lepper said. "My dad is a lot harder on me than some of the other girls. It's partly because he knows I can take it, but also because he just expects that much more out of me. And I expect that much more out of myself."

THE TIES THAT BIND

Watching his daughter Austin start at third base as a freshman on the Sehome High School varsity fastpitch team this season has been an enjoyable experience for Jim Wilkerson. Like any other parent, he sits in the stands during games cheering, laughing, and encouraging his daughter and her team.

While he enjoys watching his daughter play a sport she loves, it's quite a departure from the past few years when he served as her head coach.

"It's been fun to watch her play for a different coach, but it's still hard for me when she gets up to bat sometimes," Wilkerson said. "I still find myself encouraging her and giving her advice. It's been a transition to be sitting back and watching games and not calling pitches or putting together a lineup."

That transition is something that all parent-coaches and their children go through at some point. Because high school athletics has a finite time line — at most four years — that element of the relationship is bound to come to an end. When Sarah Emerson played her final high school softball game in 2006, it was a hard final few outs for both her and her father.

"Her senior season I think it was something we sort of tried not to think about," Jim Emerson said. "But it really started to hit us both that it was coming to an end when we got to the state tournament. Those last few games were tough on both of us to know that it was about to be over."

Both Ron and Alex Lepper also realize that when the softball season wraps up at the end of the month, it will likely be the last time he gets the chance to coach her in a sport. It's a day that will be bittersweet for both.

"I know it's probably tough sometimes on my kids having their dad at school and as a coach because they can't really get away from me," Lepper said. "I'll stop into their classrooms from time to time and harass them a little bit. But I figure I'm not going to have a lot more time to do that. I'm enjoying it before they are gone and off doing their own thing."

The Watts will have one more season together before Mackie likely moves on to play college soccer. The impact her mom has had on her soccer ability has been a large one. The affect that has had on their relationship has been negligible, she said.

"I really don't think it's helped or it's hurt," Mackie Watt said. "I still love my Mom. Nothing is going to change that."

For the Wilkersons the hope is that the next few years as father and daughter on the fastpitch diamond will continue to be as memorable as the first several have been. A highlight was when Austin's under-14 USSSA fastpitch team qualified for the 2006 World Series two years ago. Both went to Florida for the tournament where Austin met some of her softball heroes.

"It's been fun for us," Jim Wilkerson said. "That's really the only way you can approach it. I am just trying to let her grow as a person and as a player."