Activities Director Plays Important Role in Middle School Sports

Working exclusively with middle school students is enjoyable. Middle school offers students an opportunity to learn about what their own interests are and start determining what their passions are from the talents they possess.

Lakeville, a large and growing southern suburb of Minneapolis with three middle schools, is a community that has strong associations that support some sports not offered through the schools. In Lakeville, sports like football, basketball, baseball, softball, and hockey, to name a few, are not offered through the schools until the high school level.

There are no tryouts for the athletic teams at the middle school level; instead teams are filled with a first-come, first-served order. Certain teams have a participation cap to provide a safe setting for the sport. For example, the volleyball teams are capped at 36 participants per school, which provides for four teams of nine players at each school while still providing a safe amount of kids in the gym.

The programs are unique because of the varying levels of connection from the middle school teams to their respective high school programs. Some sports are truly the stereotypical feeder systems and the teams lead directly into the high school program. Other teams, however, are made up of students who may not play in high school, but they want to be active or by being given the opportunity to play the sport at the middle school level may be their only opportunity to compete in the sport.

At the middle school level, finding quality coaches is always a challenge. In a large district, ideally the goal is to try to fill as many coaching positions with our district staff as possible, but more than one-half of our coaches are from the general public. Positions are posted both internally and externally. All candidates are interviewed, and the best possible coaches are hired.

When schools are struggling to find quality applicants to fill a coaching position, it is best to work with the high school coaches to see if they have former players or coaches they believe would be interested in helping out. The Lakeville Middle School coaching turnover rate from year-to-year is close to 50 percent; for that reason, it makes it difficult to offer coach development programs on a regular basis.

We meet with coaches a few times prior to the start of the season and then make an appearance at practices multiple times a week throughout the season. The conversations with our coaches are invaluable and, during these conversations, ”coaching” can be offered based on the observations made.

The activities director works closely with the deans and assistant principals in all three Lakeville middle schools. This helps greatly when dealing with behavior problems in our athletic programs. Working well together and having constant communication with each other regarding students is a must. The goal is to keep any disciplinary problems that we have after school in one of our programs off of the administration’s plate. They are busy from the minute they walk into school in the morning until the minute they leave. This is an avenue to work together and support one another.

The goal is for the activities directors to be as accessible as possible to the coaches and encourage them to keep communication open. In a student disciplinary situation, the activities director is present to support the coach. If there is an issue involving more than simple redirection, poor sportsmanship or something similar, the activities director works with the student because it is more efficient to have the coach spend time working with the other players on their team instead of dealing with a disciplinary problem with one student.

A big part of minimizing disciplinary problems is building relationships and being present. The goal is for the activities director to be in each of our middle schools every day. There is a conscious effort to help the deans and principals with lunchroom supervision. This is helpful in a couple of ways – it provides extra support to our administration, and it also gives the activities director a chance to build and grow relationships with the students. While the activities director is not teaching in the classroom or leading practices, relationships and communication can occur during the lunchtime opportunity.