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The players show up for tryouts. The coaches are prepared, eager and optimistic. There is excitement in the air. Everyone is enthusiastic and looking forward to the start of the fall season.

Everyone? Well, maybe not athletic directors. Sure, we love the positive energy and commitment by both the athletes and coaches. But the start of the fall season brings with it one of the most hectic, overwhelming times in the life of an athletic director.

As practices get started, an athletic administrator has to immediately begin the very time-intensive task of verifying the eligibility of all athletes. Even though Loch Raven High School is in the smallest classification of schools in Maryland, we have an enrollment of 1,040 students.

On the first day of practice, we greet 275 fall sport athletes--a number that continues to rise with the addition of a few stragglers who show up over the first few days. Without an assistant AD or administrative assistant, I have to personally verify every piece of eligibility information for each athlete.

In Baltimore County, we have to verify an athlete's birth date, address, grades in the fourth quarter of the previous school year, date of their physical exam, and proof of medical insurance coverage. This process represents a 20-hour effort without interruptions. Of course, when interruptions occur--and they will--you can add the corresponding additional time.

Recently, one of my colleagues called and we compared notes on the frustration of completing this task. We both agreed that no one--not the principal, teachers, or coaches--truly comprehends everything we do. Only an athletic director can really understand our demanding, and at times overwhelming, time constraints.

In addition to verifying all athletes' eligibility, there are a whole host of other responsibilities, concerns, and tasks that have to be completed in the first several weeks of the fall season this year:

• Complete the spring schedules for the central office so that they can distribute them to the corresponding assigners of officials. Unfortunately, this due date is only a mere week after the eligibility reports must be completed.
• Attend a variety of meetings, both as an athletic director and faculty member, including booster club meetings, league meetings, faculty meetings (I still teach one class), and staff development sessions.
• Conduct meetings with coaches and disgruntled parents. This is the time of the year in which coaches have to select their squads and some parents are upset when their child doesn't make a team.
• Host our preseason parents meeting. Of course, this also means preparing and duplicating handouts and documents for distribution at the meeting.
• Make final arrangements for the installation of our new scoreboard going in the gym, which includes notifying all teachers who will be impacted and administrators responsible for the building and maintenance.
• Reschedule practice sessions and scrimmages while our track is being repaired. This includes notifying coaches, parents, and administrators about the time it will take to complete the project, along with answering all of their questions.
• Counsel coaches who don't realize that money is tight in our current economic climate and that we simply can't purchase everything that they want ... and some coaches want a lot.

While these items represent only a partial list, you get the idea. One athletic director and I recently joked that we're only a couple months into the year and we already need to take a vacation.

And yet, there is nothing I'd rather do. Athletic directors have a huge impact upon the largest segment of students in any high school. How can you not find that exhilarating and exciting? Well, maybe it isn't always exciting and I just wish that I had more time to enjoy it.

David Hoch, CMAA, is Athletic Director at Loch Raven High School in Baltimore County, Md. He is a frequent contributor to Athletic Management.