Communication, recognition vital to RHS athletic department

Trevyor Fisher, director of athletics for the Republic School District, presented an ongoing review of the district’s Athletics Department during the Republic School Board meeting on Thursday, May 19. During his presentation, Fisher highlighted the three goals he is currently focused on for his department (He also said that while his presentation was focused on these goals, the department is working to improve in all areas). The first goal was the continued maintenance and improvements to the district’s athletic facilities. The second goal was the recognition of staff, faculty and student leaders during athletic/activity events. The third goal was to research, compare and identify coaches’ stipends to keep the district competitive with other school districts.

Facilities constantly being upgraded
While speaking about the department’s first goal, maintaining and improving the district’s athletic facilities, Fisher said that the district often receives a lot of compliments from visiting teams and their supporters when they come to Republic.
“Let me be the first to say that we are extremely fortunate to have the facilities that we do across the district,” he said, “whether that's in high school, the middle school and even in the elementaries. So, you know when people from other towns, coaches, administrators, even fans, when they come to our facilities, it's amazing how many compliments that we receive on how well we upkeep our facilities and just how everything is nice and centrally located.”
To maintain that level of quality, Fisher added, the department is constantly looking for ways to upgrade their facilities.
While he was speaking, Fisher also told the board about some of the department’s projects that had either been recently completed or were ongoing. Among these were: new weight room flooring and dumbbell systems at the high school, new backstop padding at the baseball and softball fields, a new movable hitting cage enclosure at the baseball field, a new digital scorer’s table for the main gym at the high school, improvements to the weight room at the middle school, construction which had recently begun on the dugouts at the soccer field and the planned resurfacing of the middle school track this summer.

Student, faculty, staff success recognized
On his second goal, Fisher said he felt it was important that everyone involved in the students’ success be recognized. Towards that end, he said, he had the athletes name those people whom they felt had been influential in their lives; those people were the recognized in a special ceremony.
Other ways the department recognized students, Fisher said, were at ceremonies that recognized students who signed letters of intent as college athletes and the students from the Class of 2021 who received All-State plaques.

Competitive pay needed to attract and retain talent
While speaking about his third goal, researching, comparing and identifying coaches’ stipends to keep the district competitive with other school districts, Fisher said that he used data from other districts to propose adjustments to the coach’s stipends.
Using that information, Fisher said, the department submitted proposed changes to the coaches’ stipends to Dr. Matt Pearce, superintendent of schools.

Strengths, opportunities for improvement
Fisher concluded his presentation by highlighting many of the strengths he said were demonstrated by the athletic department. An important one, he said, was communication and support with coaches and sponsors.
“This is the lifeline of what our department does,” he said. “There's not a day that goes by there's got to be important information or important conversations that take place, whether that's being with myself to coaches or to students or to parents. And then, we always stress that with our coaches, as well, they have to be able to communicate well to their players to their parents. Without effective communication, we cannot be able to achieve the successes that we have as a department.”
Another important strength was making sure the department is visibly supporting all student activities and athletics.
“I know a lot of times football, basketball, baseball, they get a lot of the notoriety, you know in the media and everything,” he said. “But it's also important that we make sure that our band students, our theater students, our tennis team, they receive that same type of support. And it's important on my thinking is that I get out there and support those people and coaches and individuals and students in those areas as well.”