The moment nearly brings tears to Daren Lambert’s eyes.

He clearly has a passion for both high school basketball and high school football.

But there is also family.

So, on the day that longtime Mid-Prairie head football coach Pete Cavanagh told Lambert and his other assistant coaches that he had decided to end his Golden Hawks football run after 19 years and a school-record 123 wins, Lambert went home to his wife, Julie, with news. Big news.

The fact that Julie was the first one Daren talked to should come as no surprise.

“I feel like no coach can be successful, no coach in my position now with two sports can do anything without their wife,” Daren Lambert said, talking one day last week after completing his day of teaching social studies classes at Mid-Prairie Middle School.

Touchdowns and 3-pointers matter. But family matters more.

“Unless you’re a head coach’s wife, you have no idea,” he said. “An assistant coach’s wife knows, as well. When you’ve got all the responsibility and then you take some of that home, those hours you have to put in. So, she was the first one that I went to and said, ‘Hey, Pete’s retiring.’

“She looked at me and smiled and said, ‘So, you want to apply for that, too, huh?’

“I said, ‘Was that a yes?’

“She’s like, ‘Yup.’”

It wasn’t long before Lambert, 34, the Golden Hawks’ defensive coordinator last year and the River Valley South Conference Basketball Coach of the Year in 2022, added head football coach to his nameplate and became one of the few in Iowa who are head coaches in both football and boys basketball.

Certainly, it was a dream realized.

“I have a passion for the two programs, the two sports,” Lambert said. “I enjoy a passion for the kids. We build that connection here when they’re 12 years old. To be a part of it until you get to see them graduate and go on to other aspects of their life.”

Julie Lambert, who is mom to a 10-month-old son, Whitt, and a 4-year-old girl, Demi, and is also a speech pathologist with the Grant Wood Education Area Agency, understood those feelings.

A spouse usually does.

“I think she knows how much it means to me,” Daren Lambert said, “just the community and both programs, how much passion I put into them and how much they mean to me. She’s that support and obviously taking care of everything at home. And I still try and do my part, not let it take away from that family time and our two kids.”

But let’s be clear about how strong that home environment is in Kalona, just a short walk from the middle school where Daren teaches.

“If I didn’t get the green light (from Julie),” Daren said, “I wouldn’t do it.”

The green light put Daren Lambert in rare company. There are many who coach two sports, or more. Truman Shetler, Mid-Prairie’s new girls soccer head coach, is an assistant in girls basketball. Kelby Bender, an assistant coach on Lambert’s boys basketball staff and a former Mid-Prairie star, is the boys head golf coach. Danny Hershberger, a teacher at the middle school, is the head coach in girls basketball at Mid-Prairie and baseball at Hillcrest Academy. Mark Hostetler coaches girls and boys cross country, and girls track.

But head coach in both football and boys basketball? It’s a rare double because of the demands of both sports.

Among those doing it now is Chet Knake at Bellevue High School.

“I love football,” Lambert said. “And I love basketball. As a young kid, when I was going into teaching and coaching, this is something, a goal that I had. People say, that’d just be too much, are you sure, are you sure? It’s one of those things, I’m very confident and very sure in what I want to do.”

Cavanagh is a believer.

“If anybody could do it, it would be Daren,” Cavanagh said. “He has already had a huge role in the program so he already has been coaching sports back to back. The players love him because he is always so positive and works very hard. Brings great energy.”

Football has been a part of Lambert’s life for years. He has been an assistant at Mid-Prairie for seven years. He coached offense at Raytown South High School in the Kansas City suburbs before arriving at Mid-Prairie and will switch from defensive coordinator to offensive coordinator next fall.

And at a place like Mid-Prairie, a Class 2A school, Lambert already has a basketball roster filled with kids who also play football. Will Cavanagh, a starting guard for the Golden Hawks’ state tournament hoops team in 2022, was also the starting quarterback in football. Justice Jones, a defensive star in football, was the first player off the bench in basketball.

“We push our kids to be multisport athletes,” he said.

Still, all this starts at home. With Julie. And with Demi and Whitt.

“I may be a head coach in two sports, but I’m still not in charge of anything else,” Daren Lambert said with a laugh. “Which is good.”

News columnist Paul Bowker can be reached at bowkerpaul1@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @bowkerpaul