Dean Kaelin, full-time voice coach and part-time Pony League coach, was in the middle of baseball practice recently when the call came.

David Archuleta, the popular "American Idol" contestant from Murray, was on the phone. He was on his way to a rehearsal and wanted his coach's help.

Sitting in his car in an adjacent parking lot, with a portable keyboard in his lap, Kaelin guided Archuleta through a series of voice exercises via phone to warm up his vocal cords, and then the two of them discussed what song he would sing for his next TV performance and what key he would sing it in.

The next morning, while driving with his family for a day of skiing at Alta Ski Resort, Kaelin sat in the back seat of the car with his keyboard talking Archuleta through another warm-up routine.

It's all part of the job these days for Kaelin, coach of the Dodgers of the Mount Olympus Pony League and coach of the hottest star of the hit TV series "American Idol."

Archuleta depends on Kaelin and calls at all hours. Kaelin was watching "American Idol" on TV recently when Archuleta called from a backstage bathroom just minutes before he went on stage to sing for 30 million people. For the next few minutes, they performed a variety of voice exercises — lip drills and scales and mimicking what could only be described as cartoon voices. Then Kaelin sat back and watched his protege perform.

"That was kind of surreal," Kaelin says.

Kaelin caved in and bought his first cell phone this year just to make himself more available to Archuleta. Kaelin carries a small keyboard everywhere he goes to assist their voice drills. He has pulled off to the side of the road to warm up Archuleta in his car, and he has warmed him up while in a grocery store. Archuleta has called Kaelin from cars, vans, hotels, stores, bathrooms and studios.

"Got a minute?" Archuleta began the other day. "I'm having trouble with this one part (of a song)." Once he called Kaelin while walking to a studio, with strangers staring at this kid who was singing into a phone as he passed them on the street.

"He calls for a variety of reasons — to keep his voice loose and in shape, or because he wants ideas or to discuss arrangements or to hear what something sounds like," Kaelin says.

Archuleta is not the first performer Kaelin has taken down this road. Three of his students have been "American Idol" finalists — John Praetor made the Top 25 cut, and Carmen Rasmusen and Archuleta made the Top 10. The phone coaching actually began with Rasmusen.

"'American Idol' pretty much sequestered her, but she was not getting a lot of help from them," Kaelin says. "She could call when she had a free minute, and we would do phone lessons or warm-ups."