I want to extend a sincere “thank you” to Matt Myrvik (Head Athletic Director) and Wade Gillund (Assistant Athletic Director) for all their hard work and efforts as they continue to lead the athletic department for the remainder of the school year. A special “thank you” goes to Matt for taking an already successful department and making it better. Matt is excellent at communicating to all stakeholders, thorough with all his duties, and he has approached the job with the utmost professionalism. It was for the above reasons that we offered to remove the interim label by offering Matt a full-time Activities Director/Groundskeeper position for the 2017-2018 school year and beyond. After deliberation, Matt has decided it wasn’t the right position for him going forward. He leaves big shoes to fill in our school district but I appreciate the fact that he’ll still be working with our student athletes as an assistant coach on the football field and with our youngest wrestlers in the youth wrestling program.
Why did we decide to combine the Activities Director Position with a Groundskeeping position?
The current structure was a band-aid for our school district and it was determined that the structure wasn’t an ideal one, especially for Matt. He works a full-time job in Marshall, coaches football and youth wrestling, and was serving as Head Athletic Director. Did I mention he has a family too? It was a structure that simply had to change. School districts our size simply don’t have a full-time athletic director. We, along with many other districts, don’t believe that the job is big enough to warrant a full-time, year-long position. When doing our research we found that schools our size combine the Activities Director Position with something to create a full-time position. Some schools combine it with the principal position, some schools combine it with a teaching position, and others combine with with something different. We have a need for an Outdoor Groundskeeper here in our district and we have a need for an Activities Director. I believe we can do much better in terms of making our outside more beautiful...it just needs some TLC and a person who will accept the challenge.
So...we are posting a full-time Activities Director/Groundskeeper position in hopes of finding the right person to come in and fill big shoes in our Activities Department and someone who is willing to improve the outside aesthetics of our campus. We’re hoping that the full-time position will attract someone to the job, and that person will stay for a while, slowing down the current turnover rate of the position. We don’t know if the right person will apply...if not...it’s back to the drawing board!
