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Small schools in Arizona can have a hard time putting together an athletic program capable of fulfilling the needs of the student-athlete to show their skills against other schools.

In the handful of years Flagstaff Christian has competed in athletics, it has made its home and developed a relationship with the Canyon Athletic Association (CAA). The decision to play in the CAA has proved fruitful for Flagstaff Christian, which won its first high school state championship in school history in May when its boys volleyball team took down the title.

“When we decided to start a sports program for the high school, we approached the Canyon Athletic Association,� Flagstaff Christian athletic director Tabor Barrick said. “They were one of the associations we had researched.�

The CAA has been around as a sports organization for about 40 years and consists of about 250 schools at the junior high and high school levels. The organization includes public, charter and parochial schools, as well as homeschooling organizations.

Flagstaff Christian looked into the differences between the CAA and the Arizona Interscholastic Association, the latter of which exclusively deals with high schools of various sizes. Barrick said the CAA just made more sense for their situation.

“For us, that fit was much better based on the fact that we are a smaller school, but also because of the types of schools they house,� Barrick said. “They come in, help you grow and provide all the structure.�

An example he provided was a process where if a newer team doesn’t have enough players to field a team, the CAA will allow that team to utilize seventh or eighth grade students to fill those spots until the program has grown enough to fill a roster with high schoolers.

“We did that our first year,� Barrick said. “We would have a lot of seventh and eighth graders, mostly eighth graders, who would get an opportunity to play on a varsity team.�

Flagstaff Christian got into athletics at an unusual time, jumping into it in the middle of the 2022-23 academic year. The school introduced middle school sports about three years earlier.

Before the start of the 2023 spring season, Barrick met with the organization’s CEO in Flagstaff who told him they could join the league effective immediately if the school created a boys volleyball team to play that season. The Warriors boys volleyball team was ultimately the school’s first to enter the association.

One of the biggest challenges in creating an athletics program to compete statewide was being in Flagstaff. As a small school, Flagstaff Christian has to fight for everything they can to make it all work.

“We don’t own our facilities,� Barrick said. “We do not have any gymnasiums that we use as our own, nor do we have any fields. So we rent everything.�

The supply of rented athletic space in Flagstaff doesn’t meet the demand. Flagstaff Christian has to compete with other sports entities to make sure they have somewhere to play and can play there at an exact time.

Flagstaff Christian also doesn’t require all of its student-athletes to attend the school physically. FCS works closely with homeschooling families to allow their kids to participate in the athletic program and fill out the roster, something the department places a big emphasis on.

“Since we started our athletic program, we made a point to partner with our homeschool community, which is a very large community in Flagstaff,� Barrick said. “Many of them are looking for places to play sports. We welcome them and want them as a part of our program. It really helps our program.�

Barrick said about 18% out of the approximately 225 student-athletes across the junior high and high school levels at Flagstaff Christian are homeschooled.

Homeschooling parents will often reach out to the school inquiring about their child wanting to play for them. Many families in the homeschooling system tell each other about the opportunity and that information is passed around quickly. A contact list was formed specifically to reach out to homeschooling families about the avenues to play Flagstaff Christian sports.

Barricks and balance

The Barrick family plays a major role in Flagstaff Christian Athletics. Along with Tabor being the athletic director, his wife, Melisa, is the head coach of the school’s boys volleyball team, which is coming off the first state championship in the school’s history. Their son, Jaxon, plays volleyball and soccer at the school and is part of a sports-intensive family including two brothers and two sisters.

The balance between family and sports obligations is one that the Barricks are keenly aware of.

“If I showed you our April schedule, it would be pretty crazy,� Melisa said. “It’s not just [Jaxon], but his two brothers playing. Tabor coaches soccer as well. It was a pretty crazy time, but I feel like we balanced it pretty well.�

Even with how much time it takes to build an athletic program from the ground up, the family understands the situation they are in allows them to play a larger role in each other’s lives.

Tabor said having his family around as key pieces to the success of the program makes the work easier and more fulfilling.

“We commit quite a bit of time to this,� Tabor said. “But I probably wouldn’t do it if I weren’t able to spend so much time with my family. It allows me to spend time with my boys and my wife at the same time.�

The opportunity to work with family does not come without pressure when your father is the athletic director and your mother is your coach. Jaxon has lived with it long enough that he takes it with pride.

He also learned through this jam-packed season what his priorities were.

“I was doing everything this spring,� Jaxon said. “I was in the theater program, we had our boys soccer team and boys volleyball team going. Trying to balance it all out, my dad made a schedule so that they wouldn’t conflict with each other. At some point, we had a game canceled for snow or because one team couldn’t make the trip and had to reschedule over a volleyball game. Just trying to figure out what I need to put first and how that needs to happen put pressure on me.�

Jaxon said going into this season, soccer was his primary sport. Now, after helping lead Flagstaff Christian boys volleyball to a state championship, he’s had a change of heart and hopes to get a scholarship in volleyball.

The family feel of Flagstaff Christian Athletics goes beyond just the Barricks. As the program continues to grow, all the coaches for all the teams are volunteers dedicating their time to building these teams and their players.

With as many teams as Flagstaff Christian has continued to add, the number of volunteer coaches grows exponentially along with it. The school had about 25 to 30 volunteer coaches in action during the spring junior high and high school season alone.

“We overcommit on personnel, because they’re volunteering so that everybody can share responsibilities,� Tabor said. “The ideal situation for me is to have two to four coaches sharing responsibilities, ideally three or four in each sport.�

Barrick said the plan is to be able to pay his coaches in the near future.

Until then, the group of coaches sacrifices a lot to be a part of the Flagstaff Christian family.

“I think our school is unique, too, in that we are all kind of a big family,� Melisa said. “Everybody just jumps and helps wherever needed. If someone needs help getting a kid to a practice or game, we all try to jump in.�

The tight-knit community at Flagstaff Christian shows the team effort it takes to be competitive on the field of play. While boys volleyball was the first to crack the code of being champions, other sports at the school are brimming to be the next to deliver a small-school championship to Flagstaff.