David Reid

David Reid is a lifelong multisport athlete and coach. His competitive background is in athletics, where he was a national level decathlete and youth record holder. His early menteeship among some of the best Athletics coaches in the world led him to his first job as head field events coach for the Coquitlam Cheetahs Track and Field Club in 1986. Since then, he has continued his coaching career and education through menteeship and certification and practical experience.

David has coached soccer on Gabriola for 15 seasons and moved through head coach positions at Nanaimo Youth Soccer, Harbour City FC, Nanaimo United FC, Upper Island Metro and the UISA Storm. With the Metro and Storm franchises he moved from taking three successive girls teams to the provincial championship into a mentorship role with the coaching staff.

The learning and instructing journey that “Coach David” has been on for the last decade has included positions such as dryland training and physical preparation for Nanaimo Timbermen lacrosse, as a sport leader for Pacific Sport, a grassroots physical literacy and Recreation provider with GRS and a jumps and multi events coach with Nanaimo Track and Field… but David Reid is much more than a coach:

He is an advocate for risky, child -directed play. (you may know him as the guy in the green shirt heading up the Keep On Pushing campaign to build the Gabriola Skatepark); he is a strong believer and witness to the efficacy of long-term athlete development; he is a physical literacy expert with a passion for helping young athletes find the strength and power in their bodies and the intrinsic motivation to become athletes for life.

His journey from free range childhood play to competitive athlete to coach to mentor has brought him full circle back to play. Children are the experts at play and coach David allows them to inhabit their expertise. He has become less and less of a coach and more and more of an “allower, ” having seen that the game and the ball and the players themselves do most of the teaching.

David Reid now directs a social enterprise called Playbriola, whose mission is to reduce barriers to (risky) play, bring joy, kindness and belonging to the programs he delivers to the community, and provide mentorship to the next generation of play workers.