Todd Beamer Athletic Director Tim Kuykendall is a busy man.

His office provides a small window into just how busy the former football and baseball coach actually is.

Immediately inside his office is a comfortable leather love seat. To its right is Kuykendall’s desk, which is flooded with books and enough paper to line the school’s interior.

“Sorry about the mess,” Kuykendall cracked. “I promise it’s not normally like this in here.”

The mess, however, is understandable considering all of Kuykendall’s responsibilities. Not only is he in charge of overseeing everything Beamer athletics, but the former baseball star, who was named the Pac-10 baseball Conference Player of the Year in 1989 as an outfielder for Washington State, is in the process of writing his very first book: “Coaching For R.E.A.L.”

Kuykendall said he began generating ideas for the book in 2015 and began writing it last year.

He has completed roughly 50 percent of the 12-chapter book and hopes to finish it by the end of this year.

The Beamer AD was inspired to put his thoughts to paper after witnessing first hand how youth sports has changed in the last 10 to 15 years.

Kuykendall said he wanted to help athletes and their parents find a way to deal with all of the struggles youth athletics presents today.

Kuykendall also intends to present a PowerPoint version of his book at the Athletic Director’s Conference in April.

“It’s a survival guide for coaches and families in modern-day sport,” Kuykendall said. “That’s more of a subtitle for the book, but it’s for coaches to make a plan, a good plan, and execute the plan in these character traits.

“I hope the book serves to help give coaches further perspective on what they’re doing. For parents, I hope it serves as a guide, too. Don’t let sports use you. You use sports.”

A situation Kuykendall witnessed while coaching his club team during the regular season so many years ago helped inspire the book. The team, he said, was on its final day of back-to-back-to-back practices.

Kuykendall forgot he had another obligation that day that couldn’t be missed. He called a team meeting to inform his team practice would be cancelled.

“It was almost like a celebration,” Kuykendall recalled. “Kids were so happy they didn’t have to go to a practice. They could go to the lake or do something else beside just play.”

It was then Kuykendall realized that club sports has become more of a business than a way for young athletes to play competitive sports while learning valuable life lessons.

He’s not the only coach to come to that realization, however.

Thomas Jefferson softball coach Greg Campbell is experiencing similar frustrations this year.

With a little over a month before the softball season begins, Campbell said he’s worried the Raiders may not have enough players to fill the roster because many athletes are putting club sports first, and athletes who only play for their high school may get discouraged by the club players.

It’s Campbell’s position that club ball players hurt the turn-out rate for high school sports.

“A lot of girls and guys play club ball {and} then play for their school,” Campbell said. “I can tell you from first-hand experience that it tends to scare away the ones that don’t play club ball. They assume they won’t ever have a chance to play, so they just don’t show up at all.”

Kuykendall is hoping to change that perception through “Coaching For R.E.A.L.”

The book is structured as if it were the growth of a tree, Kuykendall said. It starts with the roots, before moving up to the branches and finally the fruit that grows from the branches.

The book outlines five primary questions:

• Who am I as a coach?

• What am I here for?

• What is good and right about sports?

• What is wrong with the sports world?

• How can what is wrong be made right?

Kuykendall first examines potential answers to his questions in the roots section. The first root is “Love.” For Kuykendall, coaches and athletes have to love the game more than themselves. The next root focuses on “Humility.” Along with the love of the game, Kuykendall said coaches, athletes and parents must be humble toward the sport and those who made it what it is today.

The next root is “Servant Leadership,” which Kuykendall defines as: “I’m not asking you to do something I wouldn’t do myself.”

The final root, and the one closest to Kuykendall’s heart, is “Competing Against Best Self.”

Kuykendall said it is easy for today’s youth athletes to compare themselves to other prominent athletes, and the urge to do so hurts an athlete’s true potential.

“If you don’t have these roots, the answer to these questions, athletes are off to the wrong start,” Kuykendall said. “These are the core of athletics. I think it’s why we here in the Northwest get drawn to the Seahawks so easily. They just love to play. You can just feel that from them.”

Kuykendall’s book then focuses on the five “branch” concepts:

• Honor

• Honor the officials

• Honor the opponents

• Honor the forgotten

• Honor teammates and coaches

With all of these concepts, Kuykendall states that the modern-day athletes tend to make their athletic journeys about themselves. He said they forget about the parents and families who drive hours to see them; the officials who sacrifice time to officiate the games; and the students and staff who sacrifice time to make games more enjoyable.

It’s why as a coach and athletic director Kuykendall has planned service trips for all of his programs through the years, from Hurricane Katrina relief in 2006, to visits to Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Titan athletes are also found serving regularly at the Tacoma rescue mission.

“We’ve seen being selfless gets you where you want faster than being selfish,” Kuykendall said. “I’ve had the privilege to work with a lot of selfless athletes over the years.”

If the branch concepts are followed, the fruit on the tree blossoms, Kuykendall said. R.E.A.L. starts with “Reject Passivity,” which means coaches and athletes are always engaged. That gives way to “Empathy for Others.” Kuykendall writes that having empathy allows coaches and athletes to “Accept Responsibility,” which helps coaches and athletes “Lead Courageously.”

“Those are great concepts and guides for coaches and athletes to be successful,” Campbell said. “It sounds like a really good model to look forward to. Tim and the school should be very proud of it.”

Kuykendall said he’s making a concerted effort to finish writing “Coaching For R.E.A.L.” by the year’s end despite other duties, including private hitting lessons.

He’s already spoken about some of his book’s concepts at different engagements, including one that was hosted a few weeks ago by former Washington Huskies and Tennessee Titans quarterback Jake Locker.

Kuykendall said he is not hoping for the book to be mass produced or make any best-sellers list. Instead, the book is really for himself and any coaches who may take an interest.

If “Coaching for R.E.A.L.” does take off, however, he said he wants readers to realize that sports are about unity and learning, not stardom.

“In the end, with sports, you look to establish relationships that you’re going to hold onto forever,” Kuykendall said. “To work, to strive together to become the best you can be — that’s the true essence of sports.”