“I get to teach sailing to young people and coach sailing to young people on the exact same body of water I learned to sail on since I was seven years old, and that’s really rewarding to me.”
Throughout his years so far at RE, Coach Logan has led the varsity and junior varsity sailing team to win countless national championships, like the Baker National Championship, and seen many of the incredible athletes he’s coached get recruited to D1 sailing schools, such as sailors Violet Martin ‘24, Emery Diemar ‘24 and Christine Keedy Brown ‘24 just this year. He’s also a full-time faculty member who teaches both the learn-to-sail class for the incoming freshmen each year, as well as the Advanced Bay Studies class for the upperclassmen, where he passes on his joy of sailing onto the next generation through the Hobie cats and RS Quests. While many in the RE community know about Coach Logan’s passion for sailing and coaching, not many know about what led him to teach at RE—or about Coco, his beloved 35-year-old parrot, which his wife purchased in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras.
I interviewed Coach Logan last semester during lunch on the waterfront while he waited excitedly to hear confirmation from the athletes on the varsity sailing team about their recruitment to top-tier universities. During our conversation, Coach Logan revealed his background as a South Florida local, collegiate sailor, insurance investor and sailing coach.
Where were you born?
Right here in Miami, FL. Yep, this very neighborhood, literally in the zip code 33133.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
100% I wanted to be a pilot. Aviation was in my family. My mom was a flight attendant. Her father was a mechanic for Eastern Airlines. My dad grew up in Coral Gables, but he owned a small two-seater aircraft before he owned his first car. So, when I turned 16, right after I got my driver’s license, I learned to fly, and I soloed and flew a Cessna 152 by myself at a young age.
My goal was to go to either the Naval Academy or Merchant Marine Academy and get recruited for their sailing team, and I did get recruited and accepted at the US Merchant Marine Academy. And then my goal was to sail for them, then come out as an officer, then go into the Navy and flight school. That was my lifetime goal. My problem is even though I was accepted to the Academy, I couldn’t attend because I’m a lifelong asthmatic.
I heard you have a parrot; can you talk about the different kinds of pets you’ve had throughout your life?
So, growing up as a kid, we were a dog family, and not little dogs. Big dogs. Dobermans. My mom used to rescue great Danes. And when I was a little kid, you know, a 140-pound Great Dane was bigger than me. Growing up in a single-parent home with my mom and my younger sister, normally the dogs weighed more than the members of the family. Humans. So, we rescued many different Great Danes and took care of them and had many, many different dogs. And then I met my wife, Jennifer. 24 years ago, when I met her, she had this little, tiny parrot. His name is Coco, and she got him as an infant when she was cruising Central America back in the 90’s, and she purchased him from some locals when he was a baby in the Bay Islands of Honduras. She nursed him since he was an infant, and now Coco’s got to be almost 35 years old. I was never the bird person, and it took [Coco] a long time to warm up to me, but now we’re very close even though I was a dog guy.
Where did you go to college?
I went to Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, and studied education there because that runs in my dad’s side of the family. They’re educators. His parents studied education for undergrad, and then the grandparents pretty much forced me and said, you have to go to grad school, and I stayed, and for another year and a half and finished my master’s degree there.
What’s one of the coolest jobs you’ve had?
I lived in the Outer Banks of North Carolina because I was working for a catamaran manufacturer as their corporate captain. When the boats came out of the factory, I’m the guy who would bring them. The [sailboats] were unbelievable. They’re like the Lamborghini of sailboats. And I was the guy that had the cool job. I got to sail the boats from the Newport Boat Show to the Annapolis Boat Show, to the Miami Boat Show, to the Waterdale Boat Show when new owners got their boats. When they came into the factory, it was my job to go with the new owners for one week or so and teach them how to sail their boat and how to live on it and how all the systems work.
What other types of jobs have you had in your career?
To tell you the truth, when I came back from grad school, I was a young businessman, and I was trying to be a financial planner in Coral Gables. So, I had my suit-and-tie job, and I was just in my 20s, and a family member said, “You need to come work for us and in finance,” and I worked in the insurance investment business for three years. And I did. But it wasn’t my passion. I was trying to make some really good money. But the money alone wasn’t my passion, and my passion really was coaching, sailing and teaching. When I felt that I just wasn’t that successful at trying to be a financial planner, I was just getting to know my wife, and she said, ‘You know, Joe, you’ve been a very good sailing coach your whole life. You got to go back to what you’re good at.’ And I joked around and said, ‘But I don’t want to be poor,’ and she said, “You might be poor, but you’re going to love what you do, and you have passion for it.’”
So that’s what drove you to want to be a sailing coach at RE?
Absolutely. And wanting to get back to it, yes. And my mom said something to me a long time ago, and I didn’t believe her, but now I do believe her. She said, “If you do what you love and what you have passion for, the money will eventually come, and you’ll be successful.” She was totally correct, because I feel very successful here at Ransom Everglades School.
Had you ever coached sailing before RE?
Yes, in fact I started very young. I was just a teenager at Gables High School, and so many of my friends are alumni from here because I grew up in the same neighborhood. Growing up with the Coconut Grove Sailing Club down the street as a junior sailor in my early teens, I would be asked by younger kids’ families to coach their kid on a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday afternoon for a little bit of money. Back in those days, I was literally coaching young kids at 15, 16 years old, not full time, just part-time. And then the sailing club asked me in the summertime at a young age. I think I was about to become a senior at Gables, and I ran the whole junior sailing program there from learn to sail through the racing kids, and I had other instructors working with me, and that kind of started me on the path of finding out that I really enjoy teaching and coaching sailing.
What does an average day look like for you then teaching here?
I come down here to the office, and I’m also blessed to have Captain Sanderson as our Dockmaster waterfront coordinator—he’s normally getting the boats ready for the teaching day for myself and Coach McAllister, and I grab my life jacket and check my emails real quick and then get set up for my lesson of the day for the freshman that morning. Teach that lesson here on land, and then we go out and try to execute that lesson on the water. And then come back, and next period, do it again. After that, after lunch, I’ll often have Advanced Bay Studies like I do today, which is an advanced sailing class where the sailors learn seamanship skills, navigation, rules of the road, and at the end of the semester, including right now, they’re all receiving their State of Florida boater’s license. And then, after advanced Bay Studies, it’s quickly time to get ready for sailing team practice.
I heard that some of the faculty were also taking sailing lessons. How’s that going?
COVID slowed us down, so we had to shut it down during the pandemic since it was a little too risky. Last year, what we were doing was teaching faculty and staff how to sail after school so that they could eventually use the boats on weekends themselves. This year, however, I didn’t get it started up because I had a much stronger workload than I normally do teaching all the 9th graders. I just didn’t have time. So, we will hopefully get it started up again in the spring.
If you could give advice to any of the young people who are going to read this article, what would it be?
Your opportunities at Ransom are so incredible. Make sure—and most of our students do—you take advantage of the opportunities here on this campus at this institution. And it will, for sure, help you be successful for the rest of your life. Take advantage of this wonderful opportunity you have here that a lot of kids don’t have.
What’s your favorite memory here at Ransom?
I would have to say it happens every single year. It’s when we recognize the members of our sailing team that have been recruited by fantastic institutions, Ivy League and tier-one schools. We always have, in the Athletics department, a full presentation. For me to go up there and shake their hand or give them a hug as they’re wearing the jersey and baseball cap from the institution that they’re going to represent—that’s when it all comes to fruition, and that’s…it’s emotional for me. It’s so important to me.
