episode three: jim scanlon, director of athletics

In this episode of the district; EDUCATING AB, TOGETHER, Peter Light, the Superintendent of Acton-Boxborough schools, interviews Jim Scanlon, the athletic director, about his journey, the revitalization of athletics in the community, and the importance of relationships in education. They discuss the role of athletics in shaping school culture, the impact of AI on sports administration, and the evolving experience of student-athletes. Jim shares insights on leadership, core values, and how the community can get involved in supporting student athletes.

Transcript

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Welcome to the district educating AB together. I'm Peter Light, Superintendent of the Acton-Boxborough schools and I'm glad you're here. This podcast is about the people who make our schools come alive every day and work with our kids. Each episode, we'll sit down with a member of our staff to hear their story, why they chose this work, why they're here in our community, and why this moment matters. Today, I'm joined by Jim Scanlon, our athletic director. I'm excited to learn more about his journey and to share his perspective with you. So let's get started. So Jim, you are in your second year as the athletic director at AB, and you have been, you just worked passionately to rebuild the culture of athletics in this community. Yeah, yeah, thank you for having me. This has been a great year and a half at this point. As we head into this fall, we've had a lot of exciting changes, a lot of big things on the horizon, and looking forward to another great year. Yeah, so can you give us a little preview of what some of those big changes might be? Yeah, sure. You know, I think we've really put a lot of focus on our branding and on our social media presence. I think that's something that when I came in last year, was definitely an area that we felt like we could attend. try to build community and build the messaging and celebrate the successes of our students. And as we've progressed into year two, we're trying to expand on that and find more ways to engage. And as we head into this fall season, we have a football program that has a new coaching staff, of revitalized, reinvigorated that program. And several of our other fall teams that are competing throughout the state. So we're gonna celebrate those accomplishments. I think one of the things I've been just super impressed with since you've been here is this idea of revitalizing athletics. You did a lot around ah just thinking about like signing day, for example. Can you tell us what went into some of that thinking and what you're choosing to do? Yeah, so this is, you know, this is year 11 in high school athletics. And I think for me, and over the course of all those years, you've sort of seen an evolution in our student athletes, in our communities, and you know, the level of experience we come to expect. And so for me, looking at our program here, Acton-Boxborough, long known for being a very high achieving school district academically and athletically, way for us to attack and to elevate the experience, enhance the experience for our student athletes for me was to look at our Signing Day ceremonies. And so last year we had over 20 student athletes who signed to compete at the next level, the collegiate level. uh Division 1, Division 2, Division 3, some prestigious universities and institutions around the country. And it was remarkable to see the level of engagement and involvement and excitement from our students when they get on stage when we have their families there, their coaches, their teammates to celebrate everything that they've accomplished to lead to that point. Great, thanks. So, you know, let's back up a little because you didn't necessarily travel the traditional path to being an athletic director, but was there either like a coach or a mentor or someone along the way that made you decide that you just wanted to lead student athletes? Yeah, so, you know, my career started uh more on the sports medicine side of things. And so I think I was working with student athletes, an active population, a population that desires to compete at a high level and really wants to improve themselves was always something that appealed to me. so I started my career working in high schools as an athletic trainer. And it was during that time that I came across a principal who was an incredible mentor to me in a former district. And he was a member of the board of directors for the MIAA, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Association and he was someone who was a lifelong educator, lifelong coach. ah You know he had been an administrator of 20 plus years and he really took me under his wing to highlight all of the things that he had experienced throughout his years in secondary. uh education and the impact that sports had on students. And so I credit sort of my trajectory into the world of athletic administration to him and to the guidance because as an athletic trainer, young, brand new out of grad school, ah he really showed me this way that you can have an impact on students and transcend what occurs in the classroom. Yeah, is there anything that you remember about that that really stands out to you, like a lesson learned that he was able to pass on to you that you try to carry with you? Yeah, think, you know, one of the biggest things, particularly in the world of administration, was that oftentimes you're going to have to make really difficult decisions, or you're going to have to make decisions with the best interest of students in mind. And it may not always be the most popular decision, you know, the most appreciated decision in the moment, but if you're operating from the perspective of doing things for your students and for their benefit, then you can know that you're always going to be in the right place and doing the right thing. And so that was something that I took away because early on, you always want to do right by everybody. I think you want to be well-liked by everybody. But it's really conviction over convenience. And so while it might be convenient sometimes to go a certain direction, if your convictions are based in doing what is best for students, then we can never go wrong. So what are some of the real convictions that drive you? Like what are your core values that you hope to bring to the work? you know, if I met someone on the street and said, Hey, what's Jim Scanlon all about? What would you hope they tell me? Boy, what would I hope they would tell you? I think for me, you know, relationships are the most important thing. And so coming in, in a previous school district I'd worked in, we were right in the middle of a pandemic and it was really difficult to get to know new students, right? We had masks on, we were limited. in terms of what we could do and the level of communication we could have. And so that was a very difficult time when you're trying to build relationships and get to know students. The thing that impacts me the most is when you see students two, three, four years post-graduation who come back to games, who come back with their families to support younger siblings or neighbors or friends. ah and they excitedly come up to you and tell you about here's what's going on in college, here's what's going on, I've graduated, I have my first job. These are all the things that I took with me from my time in sports in high school and so appreciative of those things. I was able to attend a fundraiser the other night and I actually ran into a parent of a former student athlete from one of my first years working in high schools. we recognized each other from across the room, not in constant contact, and this parent came right over to and said I can't believe you're here this is amazing to see you. um You know, my daughter is working as an EMT and is exploring a career in athletic training, which is the role you were in when she was in school with you. And, you know, I'm going have to tell her I saw you here. She'll be so excited to hear that. And so to me, that speaks to the relationships. You know, I speak fondly and think fondly of my mentor from when I was starting out in my career. I mean, for me, building those relationships with students and with staff and with our coaches and with, you know, there are a lot of people behind the scenes that make this run, make this enterprise run. ah And if you don't have good relationships with folks, things will not go as smoothly as you'd like it to go. I love that focus on relationships and that goes to culture, right? And it's really about developing a culture. I've always seen our student athletes um as also natural leaders of a school community because they're out there, they're representing the school, uh they're drawing students to events, community to events. How do you see sports as shaping the culture of a school community? I've always I've long said, you know athletics is represents such a broad cross-section of our student population We have students who are you know? Athletics is really one of their main reasons for coming to school extracurriculars keeps them engaged in the academic realm and you have students who are incredibly academically driven and athletics are an extracurricular for them We have students that are Have so many different backgrounds so many different interests so many things that go beyond just the class or just what they're learning throughout the school day. I find extracurricular athletics to be the second school day. So what we learn in the classroom, what we're teaching, and all those values and lessons we're trying to instill, carry on and actually apply in athletics. And so I always say to our student athletes in our preseason meetings that obviously we hold all of our students to a high expectation. We hope and expect that you hold yourself to a high expectation. uh they come out of at the end of the day, when they come out of a competition, the way that you reflect your own ability and you reflect how you participate in this program and represent this school really speaks to the culture and the identity of our community, of our school building. And so, um you know, I think in terms of the cultural fabric of the building of the community, athletics plays an enormous role in shaping that and going beyond just what we focus so heavily on throughout the traditional school day. So if I could fast forward you 10 years from now into the future and you looked back, what are the ways that you would hope our student athletes helped grow our school culture? What would you point to? Yeah, I think you know, I've already been incredibly impressed and having worked in other districts before You know that there are many things you carry with you many positives and certainly there are things that you look back on and say, okay there were areas for improvement in ah In many different respects. I think I've been incredibly impressed in the relatively short window I've been here in this district with what our Student-athletes accomplish in the classroom outside of the classroom beyond athletics within our community. You know, if I was to flash forward 10 years and look back, think building an inclusive community of respect, and this comes back to the relationships where, you know, not everyone has to be best friends, but certainly we want to have a respectful environment where we know that we can come out and our students can come out and feel like they are a part of something bigger than themselves. And I've been remarkably impressed with what our students are already doing. And I think they're well poised to carry on that work. Great. you know, switching gears again, you know, I think every generation has a time, place, and moment that makes it really unique. What is it that excites you most about leading student athletes and coaches and school in this moment that we're in right now? It's a unique moment that we're in right now, that is for sure. And as I mentioned before, this is year 11. And so, you know, in the grand scale, that's a fairly short career thus far. in relation to everything we're seeing. over the course of that time, we have seen just immense change throughout our communities, throughout our culture. We lived through a pandemic, which was, at least from my lens, an incredibly transformative time where we had to completely halt and reimagine everything that we were doing and providing to our students and talk about taking the status quo and flipping it on its head and having to completely change everything. um you know what excites me most is that every day is something new. We are in a period of immense innovation and so when we see things like AI, when we see things that you know could impact just the daily logistics for something administratively on my end but also how we can we can parlay that into enhancing and elevating that experience for our students is incredible and this district is Arguably one of the most well positioned districts to be able to embrace and use those tools moving forward All right, so you took the bait and now I'm gonna hold you to it You just talked about AI and the opportunities that things sure how does that have anything to do with athletics like sure? Where is this gonna go? Yeah? I think I mean there there are a lot of a lot of areas where it can come into play one of the main things I see from a logistical standpoint and really from a from an administrative standpoint is that When we're looking at this enhancement and elevation of the experience for student athletes, AI is expediting the ways that we can acknowledge and celebrate students. And what might take me 45 minutes to craft a post or to craft something that is... uh an engaging graphic about a student or a group of students or an accomplishment, that can immediately cut down the time that it would take to do something like that. It also helps us to cull together a lot of the data and a lot of the information that would otherwise take us. numerous people in an immense amount of time to gather this data to really identify some of the trends we're seeing in athletics. Let me just pause you there. Can you give us some examples of that? Because I had no idea that that was being worked on. Yeah, us more about that. Sure. Yeah. So we use different platforms when we are creating graphics, when we're... creating social media posts. so a lot of times what AI can do for us in sort of built into some of these platforms that we're using is that, you you put your thoughts into that and it can help generate ideas that then allow us to riff off of and really expand what we're posting. And so examples were exactly the signing day ceremony that we did and some of the uh backdrops and some of the information that we put up there, some of the statistics, I was able to utilize AI to help me to cull some of that information together. I think you're also going to see, particularly as leagues and state associations start to look at tournament formats, start to look at how do you match up certain opponents throughout the state, um alignments throughout the state. In Massachusetts, you're talking well over 350 schools that are members of the MIAA. And so that's a uh lot of data to be working through to try to determine who matches up with whom and AI. gives us an opportunity to maybe expedite that process to say we have found uh deeper trends that may not be readily apparent to the naked eye that alignments could be tweaked and improved to the benefit of our student athletes. That's really interesting. Are there other ways when obviously AI has been a significant change, are there other ways that you see kind of the world of athletics at the high school level has changed since you first started Kind of even in the field way back when for sure. Yeah, I mean it the Environment has changed dramatically in my personal opinion I think the the the experience the student-athlete the generation we're working with now is fundamentally different than even ten years ago uh and What we see is that we need to engage our students on a much deeper level than we may have had to in the past and you know, I don't see that as uh necessarily a positive or a negative, it's just simply the reality of the moment that we're in. um as we see this increase in external uh factors that are impacting us, both academically and athletically. We have to be able and ready to adapt to some of those things. And so that's why I say a district like Acton-Boxborough that is really leaning into some of these things and helping to shape and craft sort of the future of how we implement these things throughout the school day uh sets our students up for success, not just in the building, but I think it sets us up after school as well and sets us up with some of our supporting programming, like athletics. Fantastic. oh My last question, hopefully people making it to the end because I want you to be able to give out some trade secret here that people don't know about. What is something that most people would not know about being an athletic director that you think would be just a great nugget for them to take away? Boy, a great nugget about being an athletic director. I mean, think this may be... uh I don't know, to me, people look at the profession and I think oftentimes you look at it as, boy, you get to watch a lot of sporting events. That's excellent, that's great. I really would love to, what a great job, you get to watch sports. Certainly there are all the other administrative components that come with it that can make the job incredibly stressful and long hours, time away from family, spent to the benefit of our students here. um I think, though, a lot of that speaks to the ultimate fulfillment that you get. out of something like this profession. And so it's the little things that, you know, I think that some people may view it as, you know, a signing day is a really big event. um To me, it's just another little piece of what we're doing to create a positive experience for our students. And that's the most fulfilling thing for me, and I think in this profession, is that you get to see the growth and development and progression of students who come in as 13, 14-year-old students coming into grade nine, advance all the way through 17, 18 years old and graduating and going on to these professions and these amazing institutions and doing really incredible things both within our communities and beyond. so that is by far the most rewarding and fulfilling part of this job. And I think that's something that people maybe don't realize that it extends so far past just the sporting events. And so going to the proms and the dances and the graduations and all those things, you get to see your students in a much uh different and broader light. And so at the end of the day, yes, my job revolves very heavily around sports and sporting events. but it's so much more than that. And with the long hours comes also lot of fulfillment and enjoyment. That's great. just as we close out, if I was sitting at home and listening and I take away from this how passionate you are about this kind of the notion of like the rebirth of AB athletics, how would I get involved? There's many ways to get involved. think first and foremost coming out and supporting our teams, right? Coming out to events. We have many events uh at the time. Right now as we're speaking, we have a big football game tonight. ah You know, we have swimming meets a couple next week. We have cross country meets at Nara Park in town. You know, looking ahead even into the winter, we have basketball. have uh wrestling that partakes in Bedford. I mean, we have so many events getting involved and just coming out to support our student athletes across all events would be the easiest way, I think, to get involved. Also, we have other groups. think most of our sports teams have booster groups, which if you're particularly interested or have a connection to a sport, we'd love for you to get involved with the booster organizations and our our athletic office could certainly connect to people with that, with a particular booster group and also the Acton Boxboro Student Activities Fund, which is ABSAF, um who has been incredibly supportive of not just athletics, but really all student activities throughout the district. We work very closely with them as well, and I think that's a fantastic organization to get involved with, and it all comes back to benefit our students. All right. Well, Jim, thank you so much for being on this podcast. I just want to also Thank you for joining us on the district educating AB together. I'm Peter Light, the superintendent of schools for the Acton-Boxborough regional schools. I hope today's conversation with Jim Scanlon gave you a deeper look into the people and the stories that shape our schools. Each of us plays a part in building this community and together we make this education possible for our kids. Be sure to tune in next time as we continue exploring the stories behind why me, why here and why now. Until then, thank you for listening.