Kayla Fox is a realtor (@YourHomeGirlKayla), entrepreneur (The Fly Fox Apparel), coaches' wives advocate, mother to four and wife of Brett Fox, head coach of the Columbia City High School football team in Indiana. Kayla and Kristi discuss how they first met through Facebook and Kayla's coaches' wives group "The Huddle" and talk at length about finding joy in the fleeting moments of football season and life.
Kayla Fox is a realtor (@YourHomeGirlKayla), entrepreneur (The Fly Fox Apparel), coaches' wives advocate, mother to four and wife of Brett Fox, head coach of the Columbia City High School football team in Indiana. Kayla and Kristi discuss how they first met through Facebook and Kayla's coaches' wives group "The Huddle" and talk at length about finding joy in the fleeting moments of football season and life.
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Kristi Malzahn: Hi friends! Welcome to Beyond Gameday. We have got Kayla Fox. She is the wife of Brett Fox, and they coach high school in In–di–ana. I had to make sure I had the right I-state. So, I know. It’s so terrible. Welcome, Kayla. How are ya?
Kayla Fox: I am so good. I am so glad to be here, and yes, it’s Indiana. The best I-state out of all of them.
Kristi Malzahn: I know. Bless my little heart (laughs). It’s just where the Is are all there, and it’s so funny because every time I talk about you, I think I give you a different I state that you live in. It’s really sad (laughs).
Kayla Fox: That’s awesome.
Kristi Malzahn: I know. Bless me. Bless me. OK so I want to go back to how did we meet just from your, your perspective of what happened. Because this is quite amusing.
Kayla Fox: (laughs). OK. It is really amusing and it’s amusing from my standpoint because I love watching my husband’s football team. I’ve always loved going to football games but I’m not like a big sports person. So when you messaged me and asked me to call you because you wanted to talk about something and I was like oh, OK she seems nice—
Kristi Malzahn: Messaged you where?
Kayla Fox: On Facebook.
Kristi Malzahn: Like I am a Facebook creeper. (laughs) That’s me.
Kayla Fox: No it’s so funny Kristi because I didn’t know who you were. I clicked on your profile. I did recognize your husband and obviously I knew Auburn but I didn’t think anything of it. So we’re just messaging back and forth, and my husband was actually gone on a coaching retreat that weekend. And so I called him later and just said, “Oh yeah, this girl Kristi…” and he was like, “Kristi Malzahn?!” And I was like oh yeah.
Kristi Malzahn: The reason I messaged you was because you have this cool little ministry/just community on Facebook. So probably I don’t know three or four years ago I’m looking at you and I’m going, I need to reach out to this woman. She has built up something from nothing and you started making these stinkin’ cute T-shirts, which I wear all the time: “I’m his best recruit ever,” and all those things. And he looks at me and— I wear my Mrs. Coach quite often but that is from the good old days with the good v-necks if you ever want my opinion. I do love the v-neck with the— yeah.
Kayla Fox: I love v-necks, yeah.
Kristi Malzahn: So I had gotten a couple of your T-shirts and was following along and just, I mean your, your wisdom but also your passion for coaches’ wives as a whole was just infectious. And so I was, you know, we need to talk because I felt like there was something moving. And I still think there will be a day that we will actually make it happen but we had kind of started begun trying to get a conference together for coaches’ wives. Just, you know, high school, college, NFL, whatever, middle school— I don’t care. Because there is a, we all tend to have a thread of the same kind of issues. They all look a little different because depending on, you know, your life, your place, all the things. But you do have a common thread throughout it all.
So tell me how you — I mean you can tell me how you and Brett met and all those things, too — but just kind of give me a little bit of your story.
Kayla Fox: Yes. So, we are a digital love story. We met actually on eharmony. A friend of mine, did you know this?
Kristi Malzahn: I don’t think I did!
Kayla Fox: A friend of mine signed me up for it. I narrowed it down to like five people that I was matched with, that I was like they don’t seem—
Kristi Malzahn: Creeper.
Kayla Fox: Basically. Yes! So Brett was one of them. But I didn’t do anything about it. I didn’t care. And the next morning I woke up, I was getting ready for work and I had gotten a message from him, and I was so close to deleting it but I was like OK if he’s one of the guys that you said wasn’t creepy, just give him a chance. And I’m glad I did. We messaged a ton for the next week or two and then met and then got engaged right away, got married right away. We actually— so we met, that was the end of November. So he was an assistant coach at Taylor University at the time. Their season had just ended, and we got married the week before football camp started on Aug. 6. So—
Kristi Malzahn: That was fast.
Kayla Fox: I never actually went through a football season with him.
Kristi Malzahn: Ugh.
Kayla Fox: Yeah. But we lived an hour away from each other. And I kept thinking— he was like, he wanted me to go through a football season with him. But I was like I would rather see you for five minutes a day than only an hour on the weekends. So if we have to just get married and then I know it’s just going to have to be crazy for a while, that’s fine.
But of course I said that never having gone through a football season with him. So it was a big shock, a big adjustment.
Kristi Malzahn: Did you mean five minutes a week? Is that what you were talking about because really that’s closer to what it looks like during season.
Kayla Fox: Exactly, exactly. So yeah, so it was a big adjustment. But I loved it. It was fun. It helped that I had already, we were in our mid-20s so I already had a house. I had my job and all that. So I’m pretty independent so it was fine and I was thankful to be his wife really at that point. And then the next season we ended up pregnant with our first. We had a bunch of babies back to back. We had four babies in five years. And so just through that, and then adjusting once that all happened, that’s when we made the switch to high school and somehow by the grace of god we are still at the same high school we switched to nine years ago, which I feel like is unheard of. But it’s been such a good fit for our family and all of that.
But yeah it was through, during that time of, by the time I had my third baby I was just looking forward to Friday nights so much because it was my time to get out and talk to adults and be a human instead of just a mom. And that’s when I started making shirts and just kind playing around with some things. I started making some coaches’ wives shirts maybe for extra money but it was a creative outlet I guess. And it was within the first month or two of selling shirts that I was like coaches’ wives need someone to talk to. My inbox was filling up already. So that’s when I created the huddle and just had a place where wives could come together and talk, and somehow it ended up morphing into so much more. But that’s kind of where it all began.
Kristi Malzahn: Because you did a podcast. I don’t know that you’re still doing them but I know you did podcast pretty often and talked about different topics and had some other wives on. Did some cool stuff there. And then we had some Zoom or I guess it was Zoom meetings and you kind of let everyone get in and talk and that was fun. I know, you posted something the other day and I wanted to kind of talk about that more than anything else. You shared your heart about not wanting to miss out — on Facebook, when you posted that.
Kayla Fox: Yeah, my whole thing was, don’t miss the joy in the whole ride. Everyone is called to something, and we were called to football. I don’t know. I know there will come a day, especially being a coaches’ wives community, people are fired on the spot for even after winning seasons. There can be no rhyme or reason and you can have your last day of coaching any day.
And so, I just keep thinking gosh there will come a day when hopefully Brett and I will be really old sitting on rocking chairs being like remember when we used to coach? But I don’t want to look back and not think to myself gosh that was so hard, or oh the comments and what the TV said. I want to look back and be like that was amazing, what a fun adventure. I love where we are now. I love our school, I love our community. Ideally it would be fun to stay here as our kids grow through school but also if we’re called somewhere else, it’s an adventure and how awesome that it’s all through something as fun as football.
Kristi Malzahn: I agree. I agree. And I think that was kind of a trigger point for not just the job part for me, but when you said that. What you said was something along the lines of, there’s going to be a last day. And it’s interesting because my daughter had just texted me something about my grandson no longer asks for, the hug, the kiss, the good morning snuggle that he used to want to do, he’s not doing anymore. He’s 4. But she said I don’t remember when the last one was.
And it just triggered that so much of the things that we do as moms or as women or as couples or— it applies to our jobs too. We can get emotional about or have that moment of I really need to cherish with our children, but we need to be cherishing the good and the bad and really finding the joy in the fun of what’s happening and trying to pay attention to this really could be gone tomorrow. You don’t know. You don’t know when your last day – it might be the last day that you’re there. And truthfully, I can say this now, I had days because of what was happening with us “being on the hot seat,” — got to love it — I had multiple days. I can remember walking out a couple of times out at Auburn and standing on the field and just soaking it in. Everything that was going on around us – the eagle flight. All of the stuff. Because I knew, the reality is this could be the last time that I am out here like this. It may not be the last time I watch it, but it’d be the last time I’m in this position with this group of kids in this space and time.
And it was another reminder, because I’d kind of gotten away from that. And obviously I’m old but I wish someone had said it to me when I was young. Not just about my kids or about, I don’t even know back, I’m so old that my kids we didn’t have social media. So I wasn’t getting reminded of that then either. So you know, you never, it’s hard to go back. It’s hard to go back sometimes so you don’t want to miss the moment.
Kayla Fox: And I think having, having little kids now, I mean. We’re finally out of the diaper stage so that’s exciting but they, you have to keep it fun because you have little ones that want to have fun. And I think that is helpful. Now it can be really stressful. From day one I have been taking newborn babies to games forever. So loading up all the stuff and trying to keep them entertained and having them crying when it’s 4th-and-1, all of that. It’s stressful but I always strive to make it fun. Going to games as a family, it’s not optional. It’s what we do. Because we support each other. It’s part of our family culture. But through that we’ve made games fun. In fact we have a game tonight so this morning I was getting the kids ready for school and I was telling Alexa, play all the game day songs. And we were all dancing in the kitchen getting ready because it’s exciting and it’s fun.
So I think when you’re thinking about finding the joy in things, in the midst of our harder seasons or any kind of ridicule or whatever or criticism, we’re not going to let our kids in on that. And so as much as there’s been times when we’ve been down, we still turn and look at eight pairs of eyes looking at you – I feel like I just said that. I don’t have eight children. I have four. Eight eyeballs looking at me.
Kristi Malzahn: I knew what you meant (laughs).
Kayla Fox: I just had to verify that I do not have eight children (laughs). So yeah, it’s easier I think sometimes to find the joy when you’ve got kids that are just looking to have fun. And so we just try to make it fun.
Kristi Malzahn: Tell me how you prep to take four littles to a ball game. What advice do you have?
Kayla Fox: Bring your parents if they are around because that is certainly helpful for me. My parents come to almost every single game, so it’s nice to have an extra set of hands for sure. And then we also have, there’s girls in the community who just love our kids — whether they are sisters of players that we have or just family friends, they’ll come. And there’s been several games where the last quarter of the game they’re walking my kids in a stroller around the track, trying to keep happy so that I can focus on the game. I think all of it – I have a game day bag where they’ve got toys that they only see on game day and snacks and they get concession stand money. All of the things that everyone tries. Everything that I do is nothing new. There’s no brilliant ideas. I think the thing to remember is they are kids. They’re tired. It’s going to take them days to recover from being out at a late-night game. You’re going to miss some of the game. I’ve missed some really exciting plays and thank god for huddle because I can catch it later. But it’s kind of all part of the experience. It’s the same thing talking about one day it will be Brett’s last game coaching — one day it will also be the last time I have my kids sit with me at a game.
Kristi Malzahn: It’s the truth.
Kayla Fox: Already it’s happening. My older kids are walking around with their friends and I’ve just got the little ones with me. But two-three years from now, they’re just going to be out and around and I’m not going to have little babies to distract me from tense moments of the game, you know.
Kristi Malzahn: Well and I’m going to go a step further. Someday you’re not even going to have your kids around at all.
Kayla Fox: Ugh, don’t do that to me.
Kristi Malzahn: I know, I know. But somebody asked me this morning, who is coming in this week? And I’m like uhh nobody. And especially because we’ve moved further away, and they’re in that season of life of when they fly in, it is, it takes a minute for everybody to get together and for everybody to get here. And then you couple that with the COVID stuff and just everything – it’s a lot going on to get everybody here. So if I get two games a year anymore with my kids at the game, it’s very, it’s kind of surreal to the point. They were around a little more for Auburn but still even there, they didn’t live in Auburn. They’ve gotten married and they’ve got their families and their babies go to bed at 7:30-8 o’clock. They don’t, we are kicking off at 7:30.
I think the main thing I would want to really encourage and it goes back to what you said: find the joy in what you’re doing in the moment and being content with the space where you are. It’s not all going to be perfect and it’s not all going to be fun. But there’s, there’s some cool stuff even in the yucky if we’re willing to look at it and we’re willing to see it.
We had players injured last year. We lost eight in one game, eight starters. And I will never forget the AD called about something to talk to Gus and I’m in the background going, “It’s going to be OK. There’s a blessing in this.” And he said, “Hand her the phone.” And he got on the phone with me and he was like, “So exactly, I want to hear, what blessing are we seeing right about now?” (laughs) And I’m like, I don’t know. I can’t say I’m seeing the blessing. I just know because I’ve lived this long – there will be a positive that will come out of this. I don’t know what it’s going to look like. And it did. We ended up in a great bowl game at the end of the year, playing Florida. And we beat ’em. And that’s how it happened. And so yay, that was the blessing. If we had won all of the games we might not have had the opportunity to play Florida last year.
You just have to kind of roll with it and be willing to, I think it just hit me so hard that that last time you’re not necessarily aware of when it will happen.
Kayla Fox: Oh no.
Kristi Malzahn: And I think to really embrace and enjoy where you are is crucial for — our society moves so fast. We don’t think about those things. We are busy, it’s always the next thing. And like we were talking about earlier, the season flies by and then we spend half the year, over half the year, whining about the fact that we want it back. So you just want to truly take that minute and just go OK, this is good. This is good.
So I love the community portion of what you’re doing with Fly Fox. And I have to say, Kayla you are quite punny. Your little, when you met Brett, you had to have noticed how cool it would be with that Fox name. I mean how much opportunity would come out of that for all sorts of cool things.
Kayla Fox: Oh yes. I love being a Fox.
Kristi Malzahn: You love being a fox. I’m a fox hunny.
Kayla Fox: That’s right.
Kristi Malzahn: You started the Fly Fox as your business and then you also are a realtor. And so that’s another piece of this that you have a full-time job outside of your full-time jobs. Multiples.
Kayla Fox: Yeah so apparently, not content just sitting around. I have to busy myself with things.
Kristi Malzahn: I don’t know.
Kayla Fox: I will say, what’s really cool though, I’ll just say this. I mean, I got into real estate, it was kind of a family thing. My parents do real estate and all of that too so it’s been really fun. But beyond like homes and all of that, I have so many conversations with people who don’t only want a different house with different amenities to suit their needs, but really what they’re looking for is a different culture at home. They’re looking for a family that’s a team. And it’s so neat, it’s been cool — I mean I’m really passionate about minimalism and decluttering and all of that too so there’s a lot of conversations there. But I think it all ties back to being a coaching family, as well. If you have to pack up everything and move in a week, you know it’s nice to not have 5 million things. But also, we’re forced to look at what’s most important.
You think about a wife of a banker isn’t walking around wearing a shirt saying banker’s wife. You know. Or—
Kristi Malzahn: No doubt (laughs).
Kayla Fox: There’s something about coaches’ wives and coaches’ kids where it’s a family culture. It’s a family affair. And coaches, in order to be successful on and off the field, they have to have a family that’s a team and that’s a unit and that works together towards things. And so, that’s what’s been really cool about real estate, yes, and about Fly Fox but also just enjoying my own family and enjoying our own path in coaching is just being like OK our family is doing things. And again, if we go to any other school or wherever, wherever we end up, even if we lose every game, I would hope that the coaching staff and the AD and the community would look at what we did there and thought to themselves, we might have lost a lot of games but we’re better because the Foxes were here. They served here, they did this, their kids befriended my kid. You know it’s so much bigger than the game. The game is just the cherry on top.
Kristi Malzahn: It’s the truth.
Kayla Fox: There’s so much happening underneath the surface that’s just cool and I think as a coaching family you’re forced to have that be your focus. And I think that’s awesome.
Kristi Malzahn: I agree, and you know, when we went into college one of the things I started noticing and obviously you’re trying to convince kids that this is the best place for them. And you know you’re always wanting them to put themselves in that game day atmosphere and all of those things but one of the things that we point out, or that I used to interrupt Gus and say, “It would be great if we could play 15 games a year and most times you’re going to play at least 13 — your 12 regular season and a bowl most of the time you hope. But can you see yourself being happy here 350 days out of the year? Like, that’s real life. The game days are going to be exciting most anywhere you play because that’s good fun. But what about those other 350? How are you seeing yourself living because that’s what’s really matters.” I mean you look at that ratio, we do all of this prep, planning, practicing and everything else for 12 days or 13, 14 days.
Kayla Fox: Isn’t that crazy?
Kristi Malzahn: I mean that’s the reality. And so I think it’s very important. And especially when they’re— you know the college, high school Gus used to say, “Guys, we’re putting it up, putting the pads up tomorrow if we don’t win this game and get to playoffs.” And it was like, it was always a motivator. We’re not quite ready for basketball season yet. Let’s do one more game, kind of thing. So it definitely is something there.
I don’t know. I love your heart. I love the willingness that you have to put yourself out there with the silly stuff, the fun stuff, and the serious stuff. I mean because you’ve hidden nothing as far as real life being hard at times. And yet, we all have the hard times but we also all have good times. We just have to remember to focus on those. And I try to do a best and worst, I had Kate Dykes said they call it rose and thorn. But what is your best part, what is something that you are so thankful for or maybe that you didn’t see or if you’re talking to young wives that are dating somebody and they’re going through this first season of it looking like this, what is the best thing that they can anticipate with coaching that, for you, that makes you like, “uhh I love that.”
Kayla Fox: Yes. Oh gosh, how do I narrow it down? I mean just off the top of my head based off everything we’ve talked about, I just think it’s really amazing how coaching has given our marriage such an awesome sense of direction. We dated for four months before we got engaged and we’ve seen it. we’ve known people who have just gone through hard things in their marriage, but I think for Brett and I, even during harder years, it’s always been but this is what God called us to do. So it’s just really cool to look at your spouse as your partner and as your teammate and how your team matters more than any other team. The journey that you’ll get to go on as a husband and wife will be so much sweeter and you’ll have so much more time to stop and enjoy it but also dissect it and see what you can do better because you’re not only leading your family, your own kids, but you’re leading a community of kids. You know we’ve got 100 guys on our team that are looking to us to set an example and to love them well. So that kind of puts us in the hot seat in some ways where it’s like OK how are we going to let God use us this season and what is he asking of us? So I just think it’s cool that coaching gives your marriage a whole other level of even intimacy and all of that because you’re reaching towards goals that other couples aren’t being asked to reach.
Kristi Malzahn: Right. The common goal for the family, the unity of. OK and so what is the thing that if you had to point out something, and I know you’re trying — I’ve heard you be real. So let’s just be honest. There are some pieces of it that are not good. What would that be for you?
Kayla Fox: I think as a young mom, it has just been the time, the demanding time away. There’s lots of times where I feel like can you not just come home? I mean especially when he’s stopping at a middle school game or going to the freshman game and I think no one is going to be upset if you’re not there but also understanding, I don’t know. I think when I was a younger mom and our kids were younger and I was still trying to figure all of this out, I always viewed it as he was choosing football over me. And it took a while to see that he was choosing football because he wanted to provide for me. And he didn’t want to have to move every two years. Like he wanted us to stick around and have some roots and so he knew he had to invest in the community in those ways. But it didn’t make it easier at the time.
Kristi Malzahn: It doesn’t make it easier but it is truly, that’s a piece of it.
Kayla Fox: Football season technically isn’t forever. Even though there’s always something he’s working on. But we’ll get a date night again. We’ll get a night to have our friends over or like just be at home with our kids. We just kind of have to power through and I think the whole time remind yourself, I’m not a coach’s wife by mistake. God knew exactly what he was doing when I opened up that message from eharmony years ago. And so it wasn’t a mistake then and it’s not a mistake now so surely there’s something in here that I don’t want to miss out on. There’s something here that God has for us.
Kristi Malzahn: Right. And I’m going to say big takeaway girls and boys is God even works through eharmony so there you go. (laughs)
Kayla Fox: Exactly. Yeah. If you need it, go for it. Heck ya.
Kristi Malzahn: That’s awesome. That is awesome. Kayla thank you so much for sitting with me for a little while. We had a few technical difficulties and so wer’e just doing the last part by phone call but it’s been fun. It has been a pleasure to talk to you and I hope that you will call me. I do think we’re going to put this out there, we need to do a coaches’ wives conference. I really believe that. The guys get theirs. We need ours.
Kayla Fox: We need ours, I agree.
Kristi Malzahn: And I think we can make ours fewer sessions and more visiting and chitting-chatting and having a little dessert time and maybe even a spa treatment or two thrown in there. All the important things. WE can sleep in until 10 and then we’ll get up and meet for brunch and yeah.
Kayla Fox: I think it will be a great use of our time.
Kristi Malzahn: I think it will be awesome and I think we’d have a lot of women that would love to come. So alright well I appreciate you and you have a great week and we’ll be rooting for ya tonight. Y’all do well.
Kayla Fox: Thanks so much Kristi. (sighs) Thank you. I know. Bye bye.
Kristi Malzahn: Bye bye.