Wawasee Made A Good Choice Hiring Doty
June 27, 2021 at 9:58 p.m.
Wawasee Made A Good Choice Hiring Doty
By Roger Grossman-
He is the right man for the job, in my view.
Doty became the interim AD in August of last year when the athletics program at Wawasee was a difficult and tumultuous place. There were a lot of really unhappy people wearing forest green and gold, and most of it had nothing to do with the quality of the teams the Warrior were putting forward for competition.
Doty was handed the reigns of a 3A/4A athletics program and basically told to hold the fort until the dust settled.
Well, it settled, and a big part of that is because of how Brent Doty handled things in 2020-21.
It would be disingenuous to pretend that I was in the athletic office in Syracuse all the time and saw everything/know everything that went on during the year.
But I can tell you that I have not found a person who has spoken poorly, or even luke-warmly, about Doty and his handling of the situation.
With the doubt and angst swirling around Wawasee sports, he was a rock of stability. He, in some ways, because a fixed point at which everyone involved there could focus on as a reference marker. Perhaps most important of all, he has earned the trust of the people in that community.
During his interim tenure, he was still teaching in the classroom—at least for a while. He learned a lot, and a lot of what he learned he learned on the fly—without a training manual and without the luxury of a mentor to show him how the sausage is made.
I am sure he would insist that a lot of things didn’t work the way he would have like—especially in the spring when he was the head coach of the baseball team and the AD at the same time. But it worked! It’s like a duck swimming in lake: above the surface it looks graceful and peaceful and effortless, but under the surface it’s a flurry of activity.
The bad part of it is that one of Doty’s first responsibilities as athletic director will be to replace himself as varsity baseball coach. The Warriors won the sectional this season, and I am sure he was looking forward to building on the momentum of that.
But he won’t get that opportunity.
Instead, he has been called to a higher mission. He will tasked with leading the coaches and athletes at Wawasee in a positive direction. He will be continuing to build trust and healing day by day, coach by coach, team by team.
He will also have another big challenge ahead—securing a group of capable support staff members.
I think every athletic director worth their salt would admit that having the right people in the athletic office and working at the home sporting events is the foundation for a quality athletics organization.
That starts with the athletic secretary. In a school that size, a good secretary like they have had in Anne Richey is essential.
The advantage Brent has here is that he is not brand new to the community. The people there know him, and he knows them. He’s better-suited to do this now than he was last August when the job was thrust upon him. I’m also sure that he’s got some ideas he’d like to implement and some procedures he’d like to put in place, and he’s more likely to get those things done and have them work out because he’s been there already.
A new person from the outside immediately puts people on edge because they are nervous about what new things they will want to do and what previously popular things they won’t.
And while there are never guarantees of a happy ending in anything in this life, naming Brent Doty as the athletic director at Wawasee is a step toward creating an atmosphere focused on athletes again, not about lawsuits and petitions. It can feature social media posts about what to wear to the game on Friday instead of warnings to parents of what to watch out for.
Brent Doty allows that to happen.
He deserves the opportunity that is in front of him, and, frankly, the people of northeast Kosciusko County deserve that too. They would like to worry about how to get the “W” back and how to compete in the NLC races and not the stuff they have been forced to deal with in recent years.
And I’ll say it—sports around here is better when Wawasee is better. The conference is better and the rivalry with the Tigers is more fun when they are relevant.
He is the right man for the job, in my view.
Doty became the interim AD in August of last year when the athletics program at Wawasee was a difficult and tumultuous place. There were a lot of really unhappy people wearing forest green and gold, and most of it had nothing to do with the quality of the teams the Warrior were putting forward for competition.
Doty was handed the reigns of a 3A/4A athletics program and basically told to hold the fort until the dust settled.
Well, it settled, and a big part of that is because of how Brent Doty handled things in 2020-21.
It would be disingenuous to pretend that I was in the athletic office in Syracuse all the time and saw everything/know everything that went on during the year.
But I can tell you that I have not found a person who has spoken poorly, or even luke-warmly, about Doty and his handling of the situation.
With the doubt and angst swirling around Wawasee sports, he was a rock of stability. He, in some ways, because a fixed point at which everyone involved there could focus on as a reference marker. Perhaps most important of all, he has earned the trust of the people in that community.
During his interim tenure, he was still teaching in the classroom—at least for a while. He learned a lot, and a lot of what he learned he learned on the fly—without a training manual and without the luxury of a mentor to show him how the sausage is made.
I am sure he would insist that a lot of things didn’t work the way he would have like—especially in the spring when he was the head coach of the baseball team and the AD at the same time. But it worked! It’s like a duck swimming in lake: above the surface it looks graceful and peaceful and effortless, but under the surface it’s a flurry of activity.
The bad part of it is that one of Doty’s first responsibilities as athletic director will be to replace himself as varsity baseball coach. The Warriors won the sectional this season, and I am sure he was looking forward to building on the momentum of that.
But he won’t get that opportunity.
Instead, he has been called to a higher mission. He will tasked with leading the coaches and athletes at Wawasee in a positive direction. He will be continuing to build trust and healing day by day, coach by coach, team by team.
He will also have another big challenge ahead—securing a group of capable support staff members.
I think every athletic director worth their salt would admit that having the right people in the athletic office and working at the home sporting events is the foundation for a quality athletics organization.
That starts with the athletic secretary. In a school that size, a good secretary like they have had in Anne Richey is essential.
The advantage Brent has here is that he is not brand new to the community. The people there know him, and he knows them. He’s better-suited to do this now than he was last August when the job was thrust upon him. I’m also sure that he’s got some ideas he’d like to implement and some procedures he’d like to put in place, and he’s more likely to get those things done and have them work out because he’s been there already.
A new person from the outside immediately puts people on edge because they are nervous about what new things they will want to do and what previously popular things they won’t.
And while there are never guarantees of a happy ending in anything in this life, naming Brent Doty as the athletic director at Wawasee is a step toward creating an atmosphere focused on athletes again, not about lawsuits and petitions. It can feature social media posts about what to wear to the game on Friday instead of warnings to parents of what to watch out for.
Brent Doty allows that to happen.
He deserves the opportunity that is in front of him, and, frankly, the people of northeast Kosciusko County deserve that too. They would like to worry about how to get the “W” back and how to compete in the NLC races and not the stuff they have been forced to deal with in recent years.
And I’ll say it—sports around here is better when Wawasee is better. The conference is better and the rivalry with the Tigers is more fun when they are relevant.
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