By Tim Dennison

Tim Dennison, CAA, retired last June after serving as Activities Director at Granville (Ohio) High School and lives in Frankfort, Mich. He coached boys' and girls' tennis for 25 years and is a former president of the Granville Education Association. He can be reached at: tdennison32@gmail.com.

Most high school athletic departments today are facing tough competition. And I'm not talking about what happens on the fields or courts. More and more, we are competing for educational dollars, parents' support, and kids' attention.

A major reason for these battles is that most communities undervalue the part of the school day that begins with the closing bell every afternoon. Whether students go to a team practice or a rehearsal for the school play, the interactions and lessons learned can be just as valuable as what took place earlier in the classroom. But how do we convince the people who pay for our athletic teams that this is the case?

At Granville (Ohio) High School, where I recently retired as Activities Director, we found the answer was to make the educational aspects of athletics ring loud and clear. We formed advisory groups, implemented programs with educational components, and gave coaches the tools they needed to be positive leaders. We tied athletics into the school's overall mission and made sure everyone knew about it.

OUR STORY
A growing school system 40 minutes east of Columbus, Granville is well known for its excellent academic programs and less known for its athletic successes. Our high school has received distinctions at both the state and national levels for its academics, while the most successful athletic program--and the only state team champion--is the boys' golf squad.

A struggle between academics and athletics had a long history of rules and boundaries at our school long before I became the activities director. There were members of the school board and the community who said they would prefer the European model of athletics, where all sports take place outside the school setting. Even certain staff members failed to see the connection between academics and athletics.

When I was hired to oversee athletics in 2001, our Superintendent gave me the title of Activities Director, even though she constantly referred to me as the Athletic Director and there were few duties beyond sports. Another administrative concern was that the district never had a full-time Athletic Director, and my part-time status diminished the importance of the department.

For my first two years, I continued to teach fifth grade, as well as coach varsity tennis in the fall and spring seasons, performing my administrative duties after hours and on the weekends. The high school principal and a part-time secretary handled everything that came up during the school day, including game cancellations, rescheduling of events, questions from coaches, and telephone calls. Needless to say, it was very difficult during these first two years to initiate any programs or make needed changes.

The most substantial developments came in my third year when the school board instituted a pay-to-participate plan. The board took the sum of the expenses of athletics, minus gate receipts and average booster contributions, and divided it by number of anticipated participants, which equaled $250 per student-athlete. Those expenses included uniforms, officials, equipment, awards, coaches' salaries, athletic training coverage, and the cost of a full-time activities director's salary.

The good news was that I could focus my energies on being a full-time activities director. The challenge was that, more than ever, I needed to convince parents, community, and staff of the value of afterschool programs.

ADVISORY GROUPS
My first task as a full-time activities director was to identify various constituent groups and think about how to include each in the planning and promoting of our extracurricular programs. To do so, I formed several advisory boards that would ensure I was surrounded by a diverse range of ideas.

The Activities Advisory Committee (AAC), which meets monthly, is made up of the head coach of each varsity sport, a performing arts representative, and a school board liaison. Previously, there was a similar group called the Athletic Council, but its members did not feel that their opinions were being heard. I worked hard to convince AAC members that these meetings would not be a waste of time, and having a school board member there helped a lot.

Eventually, this group was the main source for identifying facility and program needs for each activity. Everything from the need for a home cross country course to prioritizing the order of hiring additional coaches started with the AAC.

The Parent Activities Advisory Committee (PAAC) is composed of one high school male athlete's parent, one high school female athlete's parent, one middle school male athlete's parent, one middle school female athlete's parent, an executive committee member from the booster club, one or two other parents, and a school board liaison. I chose the parents invited to join the group, which meets monthly. The PAAC spends most of its time discussing the wants and needs identified by the AAC and allows us to gauge community perception of an idea.

The Student Activities Advisory Committee (SAAC) is made up of a student volunteer from each high school sport team and athletic club, as well as a performing arts participant. If more than one volunteer is interested, the head coach determines who represents the team. The SAAC meets as needed and its input is especially helpful on sportsmanship initiatives and extracurricular handbook changes. Participation on the SAAC has become an honor among our students.

All three of these groups have proven to be wonderful sounding boards. They were invaluable in the development of coaching job descriptions, program elements, the extracurricular handbook, our coaches manual, sportsmanship initiatives, addition of sports and levels, academic standards, squad selection and awards criteria, chain of command, the processing of parent complaints, and due process procedures. When I sought approval for a new handbook or rule change from the administration or school board, I was well prepared for questions and concerns because I had already hashed things out with constituents.

These committees also ensure that the educational components of athletics are being talked about among the movers and shakers of the community. For example, when I needed feedback on our code of conduct, committee members (including the school board liaison) could see how the lessons we are trying to teach in athletics relate to the overall growth and development of the student. This goes a long way in getting the entire community to buy into the importance of athletics.

BEST CHOICES
With advisory groups in place, I began analyzing programming, starting with our extracurricular substance abuse policy. Called "Team Up" (and developed by Cincinnati's Anderson High School) this anti-drug, alcohol, and tobacco program has many excellent features, such as positive peer pressure and coach involvement. But, at least for our school, it seemed to be lacking the necessary athlete and parent commitment. By tweaking just a few components, I felt it could link better to our broader educational mission.

One of the signatures of "Team Up" is a pledge every parent and participant is required to sign--if they don't, the student can not participate. I decided that we should make the signing optional. I had spent my career preaching to students, athletes, and my own children that everything they do in life was their choice. What better way to start each season than by giving them a choice about signing the pledge?

All the rules still had to be followed and there were consequences for violations, but each participant and parent was allowed to decide for themselves if they wanted to go public with a pledge. This simple change gave birth to the program we named CHOICES (Choosing Healthy Opportunities for Integrity, Character, Excellence, and Success).

Part of the CHOICES program is a requirement that coaches have a minimum of five team meetings or activities during the season that focus on making good decisions. Some of the topics covered are cheating, stealing, lying, drinking, and drug use. The lessons include discussions, role-playing activities, and community service projects, and coaches share ideas on the activities that work best.

The CHOICES program also led to the idea that the SAAC should have more input and control regarding the substance-abuse policy, especially in its enforcement. When I first began meeting with the SAAC, I found that their biggest complaint was how disciplinary consequences were decided upon. If a violation was reported, the administration investigated and if it was determined to be true, the consequence was predetermined: a first transgression meant suspension from 20 percent of the season's contests, a second violation cost 50 percent, and a third led to removal from all extracurricular activities for at least one year.

The SAAC rejected this "top-down" approach and was very interested in policing its own participants. In order to really promote good choices as leaders, the student-athletes wanted to be involved in the discipline of those who broke the rules. So, with administrative permission and the support of the other advisory committees, the SAAC became the centerpiece of the CHOICES program.

Now, whenever a violation is confirmed, the offender is given the option to speak to the SAAC and explain the circumstances involved. In turn, the SAAC is given authority to recommend a wide variety of consequences as long as they don't exceed those mentioned above. The group has to reach consensus and its recommendations have to be approved by the principal and activities director.

Over the next five years, every recommendation made by the SAAC was approved by the administration, and this group has taken tremendous pride in its role. The students have handed out very creative and meaningful discipline, including mandatory counseling, speaking to a middle school health class, writing a paper, and attending county help programs.

The number of participants who voluntarily signed the pledge increased noticeably during these five years. In addition, the number of violations decreased to the point that we had only one athlete reach the third stage, a handful of two-strike violators and an average of four to five initial violations per year. Best of all, we are teaching students teamwork, citizenship, responsibility, and leadership through the program--all important educational tenets.

GOOD SPORTS
Another important change we made early on was a district-wide sportsmanship initiative. I knew that enhancing sportsmanship would be a great way to publicly make athletics stand out in an educational way, so I went to our advisory groups to ask for suggestions. The ideas they came up with were subtle, but all of them worked together to promote a new atmosphere and attitude.

One new rule was no standing in the front row of an indoor sporting event. This change keeps fans at a distance from officials and players, which allows safe and appropriate participation by all.

Another idea was the implementation of incident warning cards. The activities director or site manager hands these to any fan behaving inappropriately, which is much less confrontational than verbally reprimanding a person. The card reminds the fan that if they don't settle down they will be asked to leave.

We also began a project to film appropriate and inappropriate fan behavior to be used at future parent and participant meetings. The filming was done primarily by SAAC volunteers who would pan the crowd and zoom in on examples of both good and poor sportsmanship.

Finally, we used public service announcements to continually remind spectators of the importance of great sportsmanship. The announcements also told folks that their behavior was being filmed throughout the game.

Each year, the Ohio High School Athletic Association awards the Harold A. Meyer Award to districts that demonstrate the existence of and the progress of a plan to improve sportsmanship. I am proud to say that Granville has earned this award each year since we began our program.

CALLING ALL COACHES
Like many other high schools nationwide, Granville has struggled to get faculty members interested in coaching. At the time of my retirement, only 35 of the 108 paid and volunteer coaching staff members in our district had teaching certificates and only 21 were district employees (and that was the largest number of educator-coaches in my eight years as activities director). Getting all those coaches in the same room for a discussion was next to impossible.

Therefore, e-mail became the most used method of communication. This is far from ideal, so we tried to have as many resources available to coaches as possible. It was critical that every single coach understood our goal of educational athletics and how to implement it on a daily basis.

One way we did this was through coach education. The state of Ohio is requiring every high school coach in the state (paid or volunteer) to complete the NFHS's course, "The Fundamentals of Coaching" by June 2012. We tried to get ahead of the requirement by offering the class at no cost to the coaches last spring and 45 took advantage of the opportunity. In addition, all our coaches receive certification in sports medicine and CPR and must complete an on-line course on recognizing, preventing, and reporting incidents of bullying.

We also developed a comprehensive Coaches' Manual with clearly defined expectations and procedures to follow. This allows coaches to find answers to their questions immediately and provides precise guidelines on what we expect. Some of the areas it covers include:

• Job descriptions for all paid and volunteer positions within the activities department
• Evaluation procedures and forms
• Preseason and postseason checklists that summarize responsibilities
• Proper chain of command
• Forms for injury reports, emergency care procedures, inventory, academic improvement plans, and special requests.

Because this manual was developed with the assistance of the AAC, acceptance was fairly uniform. The manual is also very helpful for getting new coaches up to speed.

Each head coach is also responsible for planning a preseason meeting with all lower-level coaches, parents, and participants. At the meeting, the coach outlines his or her goals and expectations and also listens to those of the parents and players. Through this discussion, parents understand that the coach is focused on education and the growth of the students.

A postseason survey for parents and one for participants was developed, which allows those who wish to provide feedback to do so. Signed forms were returned to me, and I read through them. I then summarized common issues expressed (both positive and negative) and shared my findings with the coach at our postseason evaluation meeting.

These comments were never the sole source for developing a coach's improvement plan. However, I found that they often corroborated concerns I held. As I told our coaches, if we are asking our student-athletes to grow as individuals, we should also be interested in improving ourselves.

I also found these surveys to be very useful in initiating discussions between the coaches and parents. For example, I learned that parents needed more education on the role of the bench player, proper balance between winning and teaching a sport, and expectations of a coach. Coaches were asked to weave these issues into their parent meetings and other communication.

Through all these avenues, our coaches are well aware of what is expected of them by our administration and our community. It keeps them focused on education and student-athlete development.

PARENT CODE
To further support coaches and put athletics in their proper perspective, we also took steps to ease parent problems. At one time or another, most coaches have been confronted inappropriately by an upset parent who feels the coach's decisions have harmed their child. This can put a damper on coaching for many, and even drives some away from the profession.

In response, two years ago we implemented a Parent Code of Conduct in our department. No child could participate in a middle or high school program without their parents signing a pledge.

We based our pledge on one that Granville's local recreation department developed, and then refined it with input from our advisory groups. The pledge outlines proper ways and times to approach the coach and appropriate and inappropriate issues to be discussed. Parents are also reminded of their role to encourage good sportsmanship and be role models.

Inappropriate behavior results in athletic department disciplinary action ranging from a verbal reprimand to permanent expulsion from contests. This pledge has not eliminated bad behavior. However, it has given teeth to the administration's response to these incidents.

With our parent code of conduct, we also include a second page, asking parents and athletes for their input. We ask them two questions: What are your expectations for this season and for your child? Are there any questions you would like the coach or athletic director to answer about the upcoming season?

Developing and promoting an education-based athletic program takes time, energy, patience, and persistence. But it is worth it to ensure you have a supportive atmosphere and culture behind your athletic department.

On the Web: To download copies of Granville's Coaches' Manual, Extracurricular Handbook, and Parent Code of Conduct, type "Granville" into the search window at: www.AthleticManagement.com.

Sidebar: A GREAT COACH
When someone asks you, "What makes a great coach?" you can probably rattle off an answer without much thought. But do you know if your answer matches what your student-athletes and their parents would say?

At Granville High, we developed a list containing the qualities needed for a head coach at our school through discussions with our Activities Advisory Committee, Parent Activities Advisory Committee, Student Activities Advisory Committee, athletic boosters, and administrative team, as well as girls' basketball and field hockey players and parents.

The groups decided that a head coach must be someone who:

• Is approachable and accessible
• Can teach the game
• Can and will communicate effectively
• Is confident and encouraging
• Is organized
• Is passionate about the game and has experience building a competitive program
• Can put together and conduct a strong summer schedule
• Will reward good play regardless of seniority

The following qualities were mentioned by one or two groups, but did not receive consensus support:

• Has varsity coaching experience
• Has previous experience coaching this particular sport
• Has no prior connection with the program