During his 34 years in athletics, James Perkins, Jr., CAA, has had his hands in almost every aspect of sports management. All that experience is now benefiting the Metropolitan School District of Pike Township in Marion County, Ind., where he serves as Athletic and Wellness Director.

After beginning his career as a high school track coach, Perkins moved to USA Track & Field in 1985, where he directed the first World Indoor Track and Field Championships, managed television contracts, directed Olympic Trials and National Championship Events, and led the group's USA Kids program for at-risk youth.

He returned to public education in 2000, becoming Athletic Director at Indianapolis's Arsenal Technical High School and moved to his current position in 2003. In his six years at Pike, Perkins has constructed a vision and strategic plan for district athletics, established a coaching certification process, and implemented student leadership programs in athletics, among many other things.

He's also seen Pike High School squads capture conference and sectional championships in several sports, with the football and track and field programs recognized statewide. The football stadium has been completely rebuilt and other athletic facilities have been greatly enhanced. In this interview, Perkins talks about expanding athletic opportunities, designing a new logo, and finding ways to promote Pike's programs.

AM: Your position seems somewhat unique. What does it entail?
Perkins: This isn't the traditional district athletic director job, where one person oversees a number of high schools. In Pike Township, we have one high school, three middle schools, nine elementary schools, and more than 20 youth leagues. One of my main jobs is to develop a flow of athletic experiences across the district, from kindergarten through 12th grade, with age-appropriate, progressive development at every level.

Our high school coaches are essentially program managers who oversee their sport from K through 12. They hold at least three meetings a year with middle school and youth club coaches to talk about what is going well and what needs to be improved. All coaches at all levels then come together once a year for a sports fair, where parents and students can get a glimpse of each sport and talk to the coaches.

In my role, I meet with the athletic directors at each school and see every program in action over the course of a week, attending events after school and on Saturdays, when youth leagues use our buildings. I do a great amount of education, making sure our coaches are prepared to deliver the best possible service to our students. I develop policies and procedures, distribute a tremendous amount of materials to coaches and teachers, and oversee the marketing and promotion of our athletic program. I also spend a fair amount of time managing our athletic facilities.

What do you do as Wellness Director?
I'm responsible for coordinating wellness throughout our district. We have a district Health Advisory Council that oversees the wellness program, and we have wellness coordinators to develop a plan for each district building. Currently, we're working on a project called the Million Mile Walk, where staff and students in each building set a goal of walking a certain number of miles each day, which adds up over the entire district to one million miles for the school year. We also have workshops and seminars regarding different kinds of wellness activities.

What does it take to bring a winning atmosphere to a school?
The staffs who are working with the students, as well as the students' parents, all need to believe in your program. They can't be distracted by the success of other programs and begin thinking, "Why aren't we doing that?" Every program is unique and everybody needs to focus on making their program the best it can be. You've got to improve areas that may be weak, strengthen the ones that are already performing well, and exude confidence in all you do.

Athletics is a school system's biggest billboard, so we need to represent ourselves to the public in a way that highlights all the right aspects of our program. We try to minimize anything negative associated with our schools and shout about our accomplishments.

What are some ways you publicize the positives?
One thing we do is publish a magazine-style guide to Pike athletics, which we also post on the department Web site. When parents and community members come to competitions, we want to give them something to take home, send to relatives, or show to friends--and that's what the advertisers in it want, too. The teams are pictured in full color, which makes for a nice keepsake, and we don't charge anything for it, which guarantees market penetration for our advertisers.

We contract with an outside source to sell ads and produce the book, and any revenue beyond a set amount for that company goes to the high school athletic department. People look forward to it every year, and it's been very successful in representing us well.

You are also streaming Pike games on the Web?
We experimented a little last spring, then officially started Pike Sports Live with home football games in the fall, and continued with boys' basketball, girls' basketball, swimming, and wrestling this winter. We have a couple of volunteers who are newscasters for a local TV station, so we came up with Pike Sports Live as a way to provide students with an opportunity in broadcasting.

Working with our own in-house audio-visual program, we had enough equipment to start, and I was able to purchase some dedicated time on the Internet. We now have partnerships with St. Vincent Sports Performance Center, Chick-fil-A, and two local McDonald's, and our next step is to expand the program with more advertisers and equipment.

In 2005, Arizona State University threatened to sue Pike over the school's use of its Sun Devil logo. How did you begin creating a new mark?
We needed to create our own logo mark, but before we did, we wanted to make sure not to accidentally create something that was already under copyright. So we commissioned a firm to research what was already out there and also put together a committee of stakeholders to advise the firm. Working together, they came up with the new look, brought it to the community, and allowed everyone to have input before finalizing it.

Once you have control over your mark, the next step is enforcement--making sure it's only used by people who are authorized to do so. We recently contracted with the same firm to enforce our use of the mark, so we won't have infringers using it as their own or claiming to represent the school district. It's the same issue that confronts professional and collegiate sports, and now high schools have to become much more sophisticated in managing their intellectual properties.

Why did Pike decide to offer summer sports camps?
Parents are looking for their children to get additional training, and children are looking to learn from the coaches they'll play for when they reach high school. So we offer summer camps in every sport, which are held in June and July during the evening hours, and we get a pretty good turnout.

What are the logistics of such an undertaking?
Before spring break, we meet with all our coaches to work out a schedule so the camps won't conflict with one another. We require each coach to provide a paragraph of information regarding their camp with specifics about time, location, registration fees, refunds, the skills they plan to teach, and any other goodies, like T-shirts, they might give away. We have a central coordinator put all the information together and the brochures are distributed to every student in the district when they return from spring break. In the latter part of the spring semester, our coaches go into the community and schools to promote the camps.

How do you provide participation opportunities for students who are not the best athletes?
We offer 20 sports, and several of them have teams at three levels. If a student doesn't make the cut for their first choice, we encourage them to participate in another sport. We are getting good participation, with around 800 students at the high school and another 150 at each of the middle schools. But we are always looking for ways to encourage more student participation, so we have a very active intramural program, which is a part of our district wellness plan.

What's your biggest personal challenge with this job?
Every year, I set goals for myself, focusing on creating new opportunities for our young people, then work like mad to meet them. For example, we already have a good swimming program, but we want to make sure minority athletes take advantage of it. So we invited Cullen Jones, who was a member of the 2008 Olympic gold medal 4x100 freestyle relay team, to speak to our kids. We worked with Indiana Swimming and USA Swimming to make it happen, and we had about 1,500 students participate in a one-day workshop with him. That was a lot of exposure for our program, and a great success.

How is Pike dealing with the recession?
I suspect the economic downturn will have more of an effect on us in the next few years than it has at the moment. In the meantime, we're making sure not to waste our resources and planning ahead so that we're in a good position to deal with anything that happens. We're seeing some drop in attendance at events, but it's not yet substantial.

You participate a lot in state and national organizations. Why is this important?
Participating in our governing bodies is essential. That's where policies, procedures, and guidelines are created that affect all of us who work in this field. I feel it's really important to help provide services to other athletic directors and indirectly to their student-athletes and coaches.

Do you have career goals that go beyond this job?
As long as there are challenges in front of me here, I'll continue to focus on making this program better. The work is plentiful, and I'm not trying to climb any ladders. I was fortunate to work for USA Track & Field and have seen many mountain tops. It was a great ride, but my priority now is helping young people get where they want to go. I feel I'm where I can have the greatest impact, which is my real goal--to work wherever I can be most useful.