Coaching with a migraine

By Abigail Aguilar –

He’s yelling, he’s screaming, he’s devising plays from the sidelines. All the while, Coach Justin Kayne, LCA’s football coach, is suffering from a debilitating migraine.

“It's extremely hard,” Coach Justin says. “Sometimes my brain just goes into override or survival mode and I respond without being able to think much.”

As head football coach football, Justin Kayne is resurrecting Lighthouse Christian Academy’s once glorious gridiron 8-man program. It’s a high pressure job, and he’s carrying it out almost impossibly while suffering a continuous migraine.

The Saints last season game is tonight in Lebec.

The migraine set in at the time of Covid in November 2020. Doctors don’t know if it’s a lingering symptom of Long Covid or the result of a concussion or something else.

His life before the migraine was one of lots and lots of activity. He was surfing, playing sports, hanging out with friends, teaching at the Lighthouse Church School and, of course, coaching football. Football is his first love. He’s coached as either head coach or assistant for 13 years.

“I felt fulfilled.” Justin admits.

That all crashed when the migraine hit.

It laid him out. Justin literally lay in bed for weeks, punctuated by occasional doctor’s visits. The weeks turned into months. The doctors ran tests and were mystified. A heavy gray fog oppressed his brain. He became a zombie.

He was depressed.

It’s been four years since the onset of the migraine. On some days, it’s more intense than others.

Justin made the decision to rise from his bed and return to life, despite the crippling pain.

Laboring under the disability, he returned to work. He began teaching kids in middle school again. It got him out of bed and got him seeing smiling faces. Seeing the light click on inside children’s brains brought back the gusto for life.

After last year’s football coach over at the high school decided he wouldn’t continue this year, the principal asked Justin if he would retake the role. It was a daunting challenge.

A football coach must work well with pressure. But pressure can trigger, or worsen, a migraine.

Somehow, he has done it. He taught the kids to make their blocks, to make their tackles, to make their hits. He’s taught them plays, defense and offense. When he ran “hell week,” there was an extra, personal hell in his head.

Justin hasn’t whined about his pain. He’s had no noticeable mental lapses that might have come from the migraine.

As a result of his tireless uncomplaining hard work, the Saints on Oct. 19 won their first football game in two years, making a landmark in the chartable progress from when Lighthouse had no football program post-Covid.

“The symptoms I experience daily are psychotic and unexplainable,” Justin says. “Overcoming these daily is a mountain I must face, and it is truly mentally and physically exhausting.”

As a church member, Justin has leaned on his faith in God to make it through.

“It is trusting that God’s promise to me that this will all completely come to an end one day will actually come to pass,” he says. “I have to continue to lean on God until that beautiful day comes.”

There are days when he has step back from everything and lie in his bed. He calls in sick. The pain makes it impossible to even read.

The path out of darkness, he’s already started treading. He’s playing drums in the church and running pranks with his buddies. He’s 34 and one day wants to marry.

“I guess God is helping me overall,” Justin says. “At times it gets so bad I can’t read, but I have to stay calm and trust that it will pass.”

Related content: No More Mopey, Father figure, Football epiphany, Baby Face, We threw a Brick at them, Nerd on the football team, Ball strippers.

About this reporter: Abby Aguilar is in the journalism class at the Lighthouse Christian Academy of Santa Monica.