University of Georgia Athletics
Quick Chat: Jason Vonk
May 14, 2020 | Gymnastics, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
Before he had children, Georgia gymnastics assistant coach Jason Vonk was willing to jump out of a perfectly functional airplane. Now that he and his wife, Kelly, have five young sons — yes, five — Vonk finds adventure in more modest ways, like going for a bike ride.
Staying at home during the coronavirus pandemic is a challenge for all of us, but doing so with five boys in the house is something else entirely. Earlier this week, Vonk, who's originally from Michigan, took a break from family time to participate in a Quick Chat. He talked about getting started in gymnastics, life at home, going skydiving and much more.
Here's some of what he had to say:
Frierson: Were you a sports-obsessed kid?
Vonk: I was definitely a sports-obsessed kid. If there was a sport offered, I would do it, even if I was doing multiple sports in the season. I just loved sports — the two sports I stayed with the longest were soccer and basketball, which I played in high school. I could have actually played soccer in college but I'd started coaching gymnastics by then.
Frierson: How did you get involved with gymnastics?
Vonk: It's sort of crazy, my church had a trampoline team. I was in eighth grade at the time and it was getting to the time when I was required by my parents to serve in some way, and I was like (the trampoline team) sounds good — it's a sport I can do with my church. I did more like trampoline gymnastics and the coach of the team owned a gym and when I was 16 they asked me to coach. And I fell in love with coaching immediately.
I stuck with it through college, I actually stayed in Michigan through college (attending Calvin College) and I got my degree in math and computer science. When I graduated, there was a couple I had met at a camp and they were some of the top coaches in the country, and I thought, gosh, I'd love to learn from them. That's how I moved to Colorado Springs (Co.) and worked for them, thinking, I'll get a real job in a few years in computers or something [laughs].
I lived in Colorado for 11 years, owned a gym there for a season and then got into college coaching from there. I met my wife in Colorado and once we started having kids, getting into college coaching, we thought, was probably the best thing for our family.
My first college coaching job was at Yale and I was there for six years. One of the reasons we started looking (at other opportunities) was my wife has family in Tennessee, she grew up in the southern part of the Midwest and spent a lot of time in Tennessee, and we just wanted to get closer to family and raise our kids in the South. We were really happy to end up here.
Frierson: What is it like having five boys at home amid a pandemic shutdown?
Vonk: Five boys no matter when it is is pretty crazy. I always tease people that I invest in drywall because [laughs] I know I'm going to spend money on it. We have good outdoor space — of course, it gets crazy inside but we can always send them outside. We live in a nice neighborhood where they can ride bikes and in the back of our house there's some woods and a creek, and they explored up and down that creek more than anything during this quarantine.
We've got three that are in elementary school, so three that are doing digital learning and two are preschoolers, so there's a lot of juggling with that. I'm trying to do work and my wife is the lead on a mom's group at our church with about 90 women in it, so she tries to balance time leading that program. We take turns with who's watching the kids and who's helping with the digital learning and who's working [laughs] and who's making sure our 2-year-old isn't running across the street to the neighbor's swingset [laughs].
Frierson: Talking to so many parents while doing these Quick Chats over the past two months, the silver lining of the pandemic is that they are getting to spend so much time with their families — time most coaches normally just don't have.
Vonk: Especially with our older two boys, the quality of conversations that we've had has been great. We feel like one of the roles that we have is to really mentor our kids and that starts to happen as they get a little older. We've just had really good conversations with our oldest two during this time that we wouldn't have had otherwise.
Frierson: Not that you have much free time, but have you picked up any new hobbies or returned to any old ones?
Vonk: I love to play board games and one of the games we've been playing is Settlers of Catan. We've played that with our boys and we've played that with some friends.
I also love to ride my bike for exercise and I've been able to do that. It's a point of contention if I leave for an hour to ride my bike then I'm leaving my wife with the five kids, so I actually call it the bike train. I have my bike with that's called a tag along, a bike that attaches to your bike, so it almost makes it a tandem bike. My 4-year-old will ride on the tandem bike and then my 2-year-old will be behind that in one of those Burley bike carriages.
We literally have my bike, the tag-along and the Burley, so we're a train of three and we'll ride around some of the neighborhoods here. My oldest son, I took him mountain biking for the first time during this quarantine time, so we've actually gone three times now on some trails locally that have been open.
Frierson: If you could be great at anything for a day just to experience what it's like, what would it be?
Vonk: Hang gliding.
Frierson: OK, that was unexpected.
Vonk: [Laughs] I love adventure and it would probably feel the most like flying, like you were a bird or something.
Frierson: Do you do adventurous things like that? Have you ever jumped out of a plane or gone kite surfing?
Vonk: I have jumped out of a plane and kite surfing is on my list of things to do. I probably should have answered kite surfing.
I've gone skydiving twice, just the tandem, and when I lived in Colorado I loved to rock climb and ski, so adventure stuff has always been something that I enjoyed. Obviously, my life has changed since I lived in Colorado, so the adventure now is mountain biking with my son — but I love adventure things.
Frierson: I've contemplated going skydiving, so what is it like jumping out of an airplane?
Vonk: There are a couple of moments, really. There's the moment where you're sitting on the edge of the plane and you have someone strapped behind you, so you're right out there. That is a little bit of a nerve-racking moment — both times I went it was nerve-racking. The other moment is when it's time to pull the chute. That only takes a second but you're thinking, OK, hope it works [laughs].
The first time I went, the instructor talked to us beforehand and was like, I'm going to point at your ripcord and you get to pull it. But if you don't pull it fast enough then I'm going to pull it. So when his hand came in front of my face and he was pointing down, all I could think of was, your hand is getting in the way of my view, what are you doing? [Laughs] It took me a second to realize that I was supposed to pull the ripcord.
The two experiences were very different and the thing that made them different was, the first time I went I wore some type of leather helmet and it covered my ears and made it this really peaceful experience. The second time, I didn't have anything over my ears and so the wind was rushing past you, and that one thing changed the two experiences.
I wouldn't go right now because I have kids. I know it's not that dangerous; I thought about the risks briefly when I was younger, and it's not high-risk, but it's a risk I don't need to take.
(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)
Â
Staff Writer
Before he had children, Georgia gymnastics assistant coach Jason Vonk was willing to jump out of a perfectly functional airplane. Now that he and his wife, Kelly, have five young sons — yes, five — Vonk finds adventure in more modest ways, like going for a bike ride.
Staying at home during the coronavirus pandemic is a challenge for all of us, but doing so with five boys in the house is something else entirely. Earlier this week, Vonk, who's originally from Michigan, took a break from family time to participate in a Quick Chat. He talked about getting started in gymnastics, life at home, going skydiving and much more.
Here's some of what he had to say:
Frierson: Were you a sports-obsessed kid?
Vonk: I was definitely a sports-obsessed kid. If there was a sport offered, I would do it, even if I was doing multiple sports in the season. I just loved sports — the two sports I stayed with the longest were soccer and basketball, which I played in high school. I could have actually played soccer in college but I'd started coaching gymnastics by then.
Frierson: How did you get involved with gymnastics?
Vonk: It's sort of crazy, my church had a trampoline team. I was in eighth grade at the time and it was getting to the time when I was required by my parents to serve in some way, and I was like (the trampoline team) sounds good — it's a sport I can do with my church. I did more like trampoline gymnastics and the coach of the team owned a gym and when I was 16 they asked me to coach. And I fell in love with coaching immediately.
I stuck with it through college, I actually stayed in Michigan through college (attending Calvin College) and I got my degree in math and computer science. When I graduated, there was a couple I had met at a camp and they were some of the top coaches in the country, and I thought, gosh, I'd love to learn from them. That's how I moved to Colorado Springs (Co.) and worked for them, thinking, I'll get a real job in a few years in computers or something [laughs].
I lived in Colorado for 11 years, owned a gym there for a season and then got into college coaching from there. I met my wife in Colorado and once we started having kids, getting into college coaching, we thought, was probably the best thing for our family.
My first college coaching job was at Yale and I was there for six years. One of the reasons we started looking (at other opportunities) was my wife has family in Tennessee, she grew up in the southern part of the Midwest and spent a lot of time in Tennessee, and we just wanted to get closer to family and raise our kids in the South. We were really happy to end up here.
Frierson: What is it like having five boys at home amid a pandemic shutdown?
Vonk: Five boys no matter when it is is pretty crazy. I always tease people that I invest in drywall because [laughs] I know I'm going to spend money on it. We have good outdoor space — of course, it gets crazy inside but we can always send them outside. We live in a nice neighborhood where they can ride bikes and in the back of our house there's some woods and a creek, and they explored up and down that creek more than anything during this quarantine.
We've got three that are in elementary school, so three that are doing digital learning and two are preschoolers, so there's a lot of juggling with that. I'm trying to do work and my wife is the lead on a mom's group at our church with about 90 women in it, so she tries to balance time leading that program. We take turns with who's watching the kids and who's helping with the digital learning and who's working [laughs] and who's making sure our 2-year-old isn't running across the street to the neighbor's swingset [laughs].
Frierson: Talking to so many parents while doing these Quick Chats over the past two months, the silver lining of the pandemic is that they are getting to spend so much time with their families — time most coaches normally just don't have.
Vonk: Especially with our older two boys, the quality of conversations that we've had has been great. We feel like one of the roles that we have is to really mentor our kids and that starts to happen as they get a little older. We've just had really good conversations with our oldest two during this time that we wouldn't have had otherwise.
Frierson: Not that you have much free time, but have you picked up any new hobbies or returned to any old ones?
Vonk: I love to play board games and one of the games we've been playing is Settlers of Catan. We've played that with our boys and we've played that with some friends.
I also love to ride my bike for exercise and I've been able to do that. It's a point of contention if I leave for an hour to ride my bike then I'm leaving my wife with the five kids, so I actually call it the bike train. I have my bike with that's called a tag along, a bike that attaches to your bike, so it almost makes it a tandem bike. My 4-year-old will ride on the tandem bike and then my 2-year-old will be behind that in one of those Burley bike carriages.
We literally have my bike, the tag-along and the Burley, so we're a train of three and we'll ride around some of the neighborhoods here. My oldest son, I took him mountain biking for the first time during this quarantine time, so we've actually gone three times now on some trails locally that have been open.
Frierson: If you could be great at anything for a day just to experience what it's like, what would it be?
Vonk: Hang gliding.
Frierson: OK, that was unexpected.
Vonk: [Laughs] I love adventure and it would probably feel the most like flying, like you were a bird or something.
Frierson: Do you do adventurous things like that? Have you ever jumped out of a plane or gone kite surfing?
Vonk: I have jumped out of a plane and kite surfing is on my list of things to do. I probably should have answered kite surfing.
I've gone skydiving twice, just the tandem, and when I lived in Colorado I loved to rock climb and ski, so adventure stuff has always been something that I enjoyed. Obviously, my life has changed since I lived in Colorado, so the adventure now is mountain biking with my son — but I love adventure things.
Frierson: I've contemplated going skydiving, so what is it like jumping out of an airplane?
Vonk: There are a couple of moments, really. There's the moment where you're sitting on the edge of the plane and you have someone strapped behind you, so you're right out there. That is a little bit of a nerve-racking moment — both times I went it was nerve-racking. The other moment is when it's time to pull the chute. That only takes a second but you're thinking, OK, hope it works [laughs].
The first time I went, the instructor talked to us beforehand and was like, I'm going to point at your ripcord and you get to pull it. But if you don't pull it fast enough then I'm going to pull it. So when his hand came in front of my face and he was pointing down, all I could think of was, your hand is getting in the way of my view, what are you doing? [Laughs] It took me a second to realize that I was supposed to pull the ripcord.
The two experiences were very different and the thing that made them different was, the first time I went I wore some type of leather helmet and it covered my ears and made it this really peaceful experience. The second time, I didn't have anything over my ears and so the wind was rushing past you, and that one thing changed the two experiences.
I wouldn't go right now because I have kids. I know it's not that dangerous; I thought about the risks briefly when I was younger, and it's not high-risk, but it's a risk I don't need to take.
(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)
Â
John Frierson is an assistant sports communications director for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
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