Throughout Brian Kabourek’s 35 years of being with Lincoln East High School, he has made significant impacts and improvements in the building. It doesn’t matter if Kabourek is a student’s coach, teacher, or just a familiar face in the hallway. East’s education and sports wouldn’t be the same without him.
Kabourek began student teaching and coaching track in 1991 when Lincoln East was both a middle and high school. He taught at Lefler Middle School for two years before coming back to East, to begin coaching cross country, girls’ and boys’ basketball, and continue coaching track. His love for coaching bloomed from his own high school athletics.
“Basketball was my first love in high school,” Kabourek said.
He was also involved in track, baseball, football, band, orchestra, jazz band, and pit band for a school musical. He even had a small role in a play (although he can’t remember if he actually did) and helped out with them. Living in a small town and a small school encouraged Kabourek to be involved with lots of extracurriculars.
“In small towns, you do everything,” Kabourek said. “I enjoyed my high school experience, and I enjoyed my coaches and teachers.”
It might sound like Kabourek has had his mind set on teaching since he was a teenager, but he originally went to college to become an aerospace engineer. Although he was smart and his grades were great in high school, he soon found out aerospace engineering wasn’t necessarily a passion of his.
“I did some volunteer work at a local elementary school, coaching and working in the classroom in Kearney,” Kabourek said. “And when I did that, I was like, I like doing this.”
Economics class was always one of his favorites, so he worked to become a business and economics teacher.
“My passion was driven by the people I spend time with,” Kabourek said.
Kabourek has taught regular economics and social studies in the past. Currently, he teaches Take Charge, AP Macroeconomics, and AP Microeconomics. He is the only person in the city of Lincoln who teaches AP Microeconomics, as he started the first AP Economics class in Lincoln.
Not only did Kabourek inspire other teachers to start teaching their own AP Economics classes, but he also inspired Josie Jobst, a senior at East, to minor in economics in college. She took AP Microeconomics last year, is currently in AP Macroeconomics, and will be taking Take Charge next semester.
“Before that (AP micro class), I had no interest in business or anything,” Jobst said. “But after taking his class, I realized, wow, this could be a potential for me.”
Not only does she enjoy the class, but she also appreciates that Kabourek encourages his students to keep up with their extracurriculars.
“It’s clear that he cares about what else we’re involved in,” Jobst said. “He asks questions after people have sporting events or games, so I think he really shows that he cares about that. It makes him a really great teacher.”
Naturally, Kabourek is just as ambitious on the cross-country course. He expects his team to be there every day, give their best effort, be a good teammate and person, to understand, and grow as an athlete. Growing as an athlete can mean a lot of different things to people. To Kabourek, it means not accepting a loss as a loss.
“Everyone expects something good to happen all the time,” Kabourek said. “There’s no winning and losing, per se; there’s winning and then there’s learning. Winning is whatever you want it to be: first place, getting the time you want, whatever it is. But there is no losing. It’s learning what I didn’t do or what I need to do next time to get better.”
Taryn Bell, a sophomore on varsity cross country, went to state with the team this year.
“It’s very competitive, and it definitely pushes you to be faster,” Bell said. “But it’s also really nice because all of the girls are super nice and they make you feel like you don’t have to be the fastest.”
Bell appreciates that Kabourek expects the runners to compete with the best of their abilities, but that they’re not going to be able to do their best 100% of the time. Bell is inspired by the old cross-country stories that Kabourek tells, whether it’s about how much the former East runners have improved in college, or how good they’re doing in life. She has spent the season getting closer to her teammates and is proud to call them family.
And family is the perfect word to describe the team. Kabourek makes both his athletes and students feel like they have a family at East; he truly brings out the best in people and is a vital piece of the school. But there are also four more words that Kabourek’s wife lived by as a cross country runner, and now Lincoln East cross country does too.
I can, I will.
