Fivay begins search for athletic director

Posted Feb 2, 2010 by Eddie Daniels

Updated Feb 2, 2010 at 04:15 PM

Fivay High School, which will open in August, will post its open athletic director position Wednesday, according to principal, Angie Stone.

The posting will last for five school days, closing on the afternoon of Feb. 9. Interviews will commence around Feb. 15, she said.

A timetable hasn’t been set because at this point, it’s just Stone and assistant principal Erik Hermansen and they’re in the process of sifting through 40 applicants for four different positions at the school with more to come.

“Hopefully we’ll have (the athletic director position) done within a couple days and be ready to announce who it is,” Stone said.

As for the head football coach position, that will advertise March 15 and follow the same guidelines as the AD opening.

“We’ll have a committee and we’ll do a two-round interview process just like we did when we opened Sunlake,” said Stone, who opened Sunlake in 2007. “Probably that following Monday (March 22), we’ll start setting up interviews.”

Fivay, which will draw students from Hudson, River Ridge and Ridgewood high schools, will be located at 12115 Chicago Avenue in Hudson.

There was talk of adding artificial turf to the school’s playing fields due to a severe lack of space. Originally, there would have been no room for practice fields, which in turn would have pounded the game day surfaces.

Pasco County athletic director Phil Bell confirmed those artificial surfaces are no longer in the plans. The projected price tag would have ranged from $750,000 to $1.2 million.

“We actually bought five or six more acres, which helped us with the footprint, which has helped get a practice field,” Bell said. “At one time we were really concerned that we weren’t going to have practice fields, so we looked into a multi-use field where we could practice and play. We ended up getting a little bit more land, which helped with the drainage and helps us stretch the complex out a little bit.”

The school will also host a parent night Wednesday at 6 p.m. inside the Ridgewood Media Center.