“I don’t want to work with no kids.”
That’s what Daryl Vann told his grandma when a family friend mentioned a job opening working with youth. He was just looking for work, any work, but the idea of spending his days around kids? That wasn’t exactly ideal for him.
But life had other plans.
On his very first day, the kids were coming back from a field trip. As they filed in, one looked straight at him and shouted, “Michael Jordan!”
Daryl laughs when he tells the story now.
“That moment caught my heart,” he says. “I didn’t even know what I was doing yet, but after that? I was in!”
Who knew being called Michael Jordan would be the start of a 25-year legacy? At first, Daryl, now 49, wasn’t sure where he was going. After high school, life hit him hard. His mom passed away just two months after graduation from Hug High and friends were headed off to college, but him? He was stuck.
His mom had him when she was just 14. He had four half siblings with different fathers, but without his mom and without high school structure, he felt lost.
“1994 to ‘99 was just a dark time,” he says.
Daryl recalls going into a depression, but once he found work in local youth programs, things shifted ever since that first day.
He started at a local camp, then spent nearly two decades with Sierra Kids at Lemelson STEM academy, building a reputation as someone the kids could count on. Today, he’s at the Mount Rose K-8 school, as the site supervisor for the Sierra Kids program.
But “supervisor” barely scratches the surface of what Daryl really does.
Walk into Mount Rose during after school hours, and it won’t take long to figure out who Daryl is. Even when surrounded by staff, he’s the one the kids go to. Whether they need a laugh, an energy boost, an ice pack, want to play a game, or just have something to share. All of the interactions between him and the kids he meets with patience, energy, and a grin that never seems to fade.
“I used to be a staff member, playing and hanging out,” he says. “Now I oversee everything. But I still make sure I interact. I listen. Not just talk, I listen.”
That part matters to him. He knows how rare it is for kids to feel heard and how deeply they respond when they are.
“I am a big talker, like the star of the show, you know. But to be a star you have to listen to everyone else and it's not just about me,” he said during our interview.
Whether it's games or just sitting and talking, what really defines Daryl’s work is consistency. He is always there. Rain, shine, even sick days. Explaining how it's just a feeling you can’t beat.
“It’s the trust. When parents trust you with their kids, their creations, it means something. That’s not something I take lightly,” he said.
He’s never had kids of his own, but he makes sure to treat them like they are his own. This comes from his own upbringing of lacking a father figure. Now, he’s made it his mission to be the strong presence he never had.
“I see myself in some of these kids,” he said. “A little rough around the edges, but full of potential. All they need is someone to believe in them.”
He didn’t plan for any of this. But now? Somewhere between that first day and all the years that followed, this became more than a job. It became his purpose. And to think it all started with one kid calling him Michael Jordan.
“It’s simple: show up, mean it and be someone a kid can count on,” he said of his recipe for doing this job so well.
He does exactly that. Not because he set out to be the star, but because he makes sure that every kid feels like one.