Two local athletic directors were recently honored for their dedication and passion for high school sports.
On March 13, the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association selected Westland John Glenn’s Jason Malloy and Bloomfield Hills Roeper’s Ed Sack as the Athletic Director of the Year in their respective regions.
Here is how they’re making a difference at their schools:
Inspiring the leaders at John Glenn to lead
Malloy already had an established career as an elementary teacher and football coach when he finally found his calling to become an AD.
“I have a deep-rooted faith in God, and I thought he had put me on the path I needed to be on,” Malloy told Hometown Life during a phone interview last week. “But God revealed to me that he had greater plans to not just impact young people but also impact adults. I had a purpose in my previous job, but now I have a calling.
“Not only do I want to help student-athletes succeed, but it is my job to coach the coaches and help them feel like they can make an impact. I’m not here to just help football coaches. I’m realizing I can make the same impact for swim, cheer, tennis and other coaches.”
Malloy, who graduated from nearby Dearborn Heights Robichaud in 1998 and went on to play football at Western Michigan University, has spent the past four school years leading John Glenn’s athletic department.
He has also been the AD at Robichaud and Wayne Memorial. He’s coached football at Robichaud, Ann Arbor Pioneer, Ypsilanti, Concordia University-Ann Arbor and Wayne State University.
“I look back at my experience playing in college and coaching elsewhere, and that’s given me the attributes to help others improve,” Malloy added. “Here at John Glenn, we talk about winning forever. I want the kids to win at life and, yeah, I want them to win on the playing field. But what do kids remember the most? They remember the high school experiences they had with their coaches and friends, and I want the student-athletes here to have that same experience when they look back and remember John Glenn 10, 20 years from now.”
Empowering others hasn’t been the only thing Malloy has achieved in his short time with the Rockets.
He helped the school create its Athletic Hall of Fame two years ago, something he also did while at Robichaud. Now legendardy Rockets such as former coaches Lloyd Carr and Chuck Gordan and Michigan State football stars Keshawn Martin and Jeremy Langford will be remembered for decades.
John Glenn inducted its second class in February.
“Here at John Glenn, the standard is the standard, and we’re trying to raise what that bar looks like every day,” Malloy said. “My job is to find people who can meet that athletic standard, academic excellence and performance excellent, and it starts with the relationships we make here. That’s something we need to focus on way before we can ever talk X’s and O’s.”
Making the most with limited resources
Many ADs at the Division 4 level parlay their success into jobs at larger schools.
But not Sack, who has been both a coach and physical education teacher at Roeper since 1994 and has spent the past 10 school years leading its athletic department.
“I haven’t left because the kids are amazing here,” Sack told Hometown Life before a track and field practice last month at Roeper’s Middle and Upper School campus in Birmingham. “The kids are absolutely amazing as far as their humor, intellect and engagement, and it’s been a wonderful place to work.”
That’s not to say leading a high school with an enrollment of about 150 students is easy. There are plenty of challenges Sack faces daily, especially at an institution that attracts Oakland County’s most-gifted learners.
Consider Roeper’s location, for example. Its campus is too small to host athletic fields and events.
Its gymnasium is actually next door to its elementary school, which is about a 10-minute drive up Woodward Avenue. It doesn’t have soccer fields, so it rents field time from United Wholesale Mortgage Sports Complex in Pontiac. All of its track meets are away games because, well, it doesn’t have any room for a full-size oval.
However, Roeper makes do with what it has. And the Roughriders have enjoyed plenty of success over the years. Sack coached the boys soccer team to a state championship in 2014, while Roeper has had a handful of individual state champions in other sports, such as track.
“There is some stress involved as an athletic director as far as securing facilities when they’re rentals,” Sack said. “If I ever lose United Wholesale, I immediately have to consider the next viable option. So, really, it’s been about being a good neighbor, securing good friendships and finding ways to secure great facilities.
“And we’ve fixed ways to get our kids there. We run shuttles both ways so the kids don’t have transportation problems. “Our school is pointed in the right direction as far as being landlocked and finding creative ways to secure field and playing situations.”
Sack spearheads Roeper’s efforts to host district and regional tournaments in sports like basketball and volleyball.
He has also helped Roeper fundraise for charitable organizations such as Grace Centers of Hope, Lymphoma Society, Moms for Marines, Alternatives for Girls and the Special Olympics.
“We’re a school that’s fairly small, so we’ve got to find creative ways to maintain programming and stay competitive,” Sack added. “We’ve had our moments (with team success), and it’s been fun, especially knowing how tough it can be to be the last team in the state to win in a season. Overachieving is always a goal for all of our coaches here, and I think they do that most of the time.”
Brandon Folsom covers high school sports in metro Detroit for Hometown Life. Follow him on Twitter at @folsombrandonj.
This article originally appeared on Hometownlife.com: Leaders from Westland John Glenn, Bloomfield Hills Roeper named ADs of the Year
Reporting by Brandon Folsom, Hometownlife.com / Hometownlife.com
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
