The Dean of Arizona High School Sports: 40 Years of Watching Parents Get It Right — and Wrong
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Episode Summary
In Episode 7 of Be Valiant, Todd Merkow sits down with Kevin McCabe — a man Todd has known for nearly 30 years, going back to their days together at Fox Sports Arizona. Kevin is the host of the Kevin McCabe Show on Arizona Sports 98.7, a weekly radio program that brings high school athletes and coaches into the studio to be celebrated, not analyzed. He has been covering Arizona prep sports for more than 40 years, starting in Flagstaff in 1981 and working his way through Tucson and eventually Phoenix, where he covered everything from the Suns to the World Series to Charles Barkley's Finals run — and kept coming back to high school sports every time, because that is where his heart has always been. He is known across the state simply as the Dean of Arizona High School Sports.
Kevin and his wife Penny raised five kids — Kenny, Sarah, Eleanor, Charlotte, and KJ — on the west side of Phoenix. They are, as Kevin puts it, their own basketball starting five. The McCabe household was not a sports factory. Kevin describes himself as a parent who tried to open doors and let his kids walk through them on their own terms. His oldest son Kenny played lacrosse and Little League but was always an artist at heart. His daughter Sarah was the competitor — a driven, focused softball pitcher who eventually chose to play at an NAIA school in Chicago over Division I offers, went on to become a CPA at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and built a life in a city she fell in love with. His daughter Eleanor was a figure skater who competed at a high level and whose time on the ice gave her the confidence to overcome a unique form of verbal dyslexia. Charlotte was the free spirit — a cheerleader and softball player who listened to Led Zeppelin and just loved being part of a team. And KJ played football at Corona del Sol until his junior year, when a combination of no reps, standing on the sideline for three hours at a time, and a coaching environment that had stopped being fun made him walk away. Kevin let him.
High school sports are still the purest of all sports. It's getting a little dirty, a little cloudy — with parents getting in the way, and NIL and transfers. But they're not making 2.3 million, and coaches aren't making but a $4,000 stipend. They're still teachers. I love the genuineness of that.
The conversation moves quickly into what Kevin has watched change over four decades of covering prep sports. The kids, he says, are still kids — they still want to compete, still dream of going pro, still need their parents to make sure they have clean socks on Saturday morning. What has changed is the noise around them. Social media, NIL, the transfer portal, the professionalization of club sports, the monetization of youth athletics — all of it has created a pressure system that is getting louder and more distorting every year. Kevin estimates that maybe 90 percent of parents are still genuinely in it for the right reasons. He pauses. Maybe 88 percent now, he says. The other 12 percent are just getting louder.
My daughter had a great year, and the coach had already replaced her with a couple of others. She had to try out. I was really upset. So we went and played for another team — and she had a great time. You have to find the most comforting place where she can also grow.
One of the most practically useful sections of the episode is Kevin's breakdown of the club-to-high-school pipeline. His position is honest and somewhat uncomfortable: if your child wants to play varsity high school sports in Arizona, they almost certainly need to be playing club year-round. Not because development requires it — Kevin's own daughter had her best pitching year when she took the summer off to swim — but because high school coaches are watching club, recruiting through club, and building their rosters around club relationships. The system has been built this way, and pretending otherwise does not help families navigate it. What Kevin pushes back on is the idea that this pipeline should lead to a single destination. Sarah McCabe was recruited by Division I programs. She chose an NAIA school in Chicago because she wanted to play, get a business degree, and live in a great city. She is now an executive at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Kevin does not frame this as a consolation story. He frames it as the right call.
Sarah's two teammates got opportunities to go play at ASU. They got books. They got a half scholarship. For two years, they pinch ran twice. They went to every meeting, every study hall, every weight training — and pinch ran twice. Go someplace you're going to play and enjoy it and meet friends.
The parent-coach section of the episode is one Kevin clearly has strong feelings about. He has seen it done well — coaches who are far enough removed from the decision-making that their own kid's presence on the roster does not distort the team. He has seen it done badly, repeatedly, in ways that embarrass kids on the field, divide teams, and poison the stands. His particular concern is club coaches who also coach high school programs and end up playing their own club kids over others — a dynamic he describes as cloudy, gross, and increasingly common in volleyball and soccer. Todd goes further and says flatly that parent coaches in high school should not be allowed. Kevin does not fully disagree.
The episode closes on two subjects Kevin says he thinks about constantly: the safety of high school athletes in an era of streaming, social media, and unvetted sideline access — he has pushed the AIA to require background checks for anyone credentialed to cover prep sports — and the question of what it means to live a life that is not about yourself. Kevin spent years in television worried about how he looked, whether he would win an Emmy, whether the camera was on him. He says it took him a long time to figure out that lifting other people up is the whole point. That is what he does on his radio show every Saturday. That is what he says being Valiant means.
It took me a long time to learn that it's not about me. If you can lift everybody up around you, celebrate everybody around you — you'll feel much better. You'll be a champ. You'll be Valiant.
Top 5 Takeaways
The club-to-high-school pipeline is real — but it does not have one destination. In Arizona and most major markets, playing club year-round has become a practical prerequisite for competing at the high school varsity level. High school coaches watch club, recruit through club, and build rosters around club relationships. Families need to understand this reality and plan for it. What they do not need to do is let the pipeline convince them that the only acceptable outcome is a Division I scholarship. Kevin's daughter Sarah played club softball, pitched for Corona del Sol, got recruited by D1 programs, and chose an NAIA school in Chicago because it was the right fit. She is now an executive at PricewaterhouseCoopers. The pipeline is a tool. It is not a destiny.
Your kid's best year might come when they step away. Kevin's daughter Sarah had her best pitching season the summer she took off from softball and joined a swim team. The cross-training, the mental reset, the break from the grind — it made her better. This is not an argument against club sports. It is an argument against the idea that more is always more. Multi-sport participation, rest, and variety are not threats to development. They are part of it.
Watch what you say in the stands — and understand that your kid can hear you from the field. Kevin has covered high school sports for more than 40 years. He has watched kids get embarrassed by their parents on the sideline. He has watched teammates ask each other on the drive home whether their parents yelled at them. He has watched parents chirp loud enough that the kid on the field looks over and loses focus. His rule is simple: be positive in every comment you make, because the people next to you hear them, and so does your child.
Parent coaches are a risk — know what you are signing up for. Kevin has seen parent coaches who do it beautifully, staying far enough from the decision-making that their own kid's presence does not distort the team. He has also seen it done badly, repeatedly, in ways that divide rosters, poison stands, and embarrass kids. His particular concern is club coaches who also run high school programs and end up playing their own club kids over others. If you have a choice about whether your child plays for a parent coach, do your homework first. A track record of fairness matters more than the credential.
The goal is not the scholarship. It is the life. Kevin watched Sarah get recruited by Division I programs and choose Chicago. He watched her build a network, live in a great city, compete at a level where she actually played, and come out the other side as a driven professional. He also watched two of her teammates take partial D1 scholarships, pinch run twice in two years, and miss the entire experience of college athletics. The scholarship number on the offer letter is not the measure of success. Playing, growing, competing, and building a life — that is the measure.
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