Job of an Athletic Director and Why I Want to Achieve It – Free Essay Example

The athletic director (AD) reports directly to the president of the school. In this role the AD serves as an administrator over functions of an athletic nature. The program can encompass several sports in either the NCAA or NAIA championship programs, the coaches, assistant coaches, athletic trainers, sports information, and student workers. The athletic director provides administrative direction and oversight for all aspects of the school’s athletic program with special attention to recruiting athletes and developing resources for the area of athletics. The athletic director serves as a liaison between the school and the parents, of either the NAIA or NCAA conference, faculty, and staff. The position requires excellent organization, managerial and communication skills, budget management, and leadership of coaches and staff. The paper will break down the job’s day to day and how to succeed in the job and the reason why I want the job and my plan to achieve getting the job.

The athletic director of a school normally has to progress through several stages of a sport. The order of becoming an AD can either start as an assistant coach to head coach to assistant AD to AD. The other order is starting off in NAIA or NCAA in the front office and just doing jobs similar as investigator for misconduct because they know what to look for in a program. The day-to-day objective of an AD is to talk to each sport coach or person in charge look at the budget and if it is changing. Athletic directors have multiple unique responsibilities, which they must balance carefully. For example, in a single day, an athletic director may attend financial meetings, arrange field reservations, purchase specific athletic resources, and implement specific improvements or policy changes. One of the most important skills if not the most is that an athletic director must possess is effective decision-making. This can be especially crucial when defining the goals and the future of the athletic department. Athletic directors are the face of all their departments, because by demonstrating the ability to steer their programs in a direction they want to see the program go. Athletic directors have a plethora of substantial duties and responsibilities, including helping students to maintain an educational and athletic balance, and setting the creative vision for their department, and working with the top administrators of the university or whatever organization so that they can manage their department’s resources and ongoing organizational efforts. These organizational responsibilities will most likely include hiring the coaching staff, promoting the athletic programs, maintaining facilities, and coordinating with administrative staff. Athletic departments can have a substantial impact on the revenue and enrollment of a learning institution, so its image needs to positively reflect the school or university.

The great thing about being an athletic director is the benefits that come with it. The reason I say that is because the job comes with the ability to hang around any and all sports, I find interesting and getting a different appreciation for the sports I used to play. Then also the job comes with, amazing things like the experience to have a chance at higher things later if I want to do other things. The biggest draw to the job is one of the benefits that comes from working in a public school or being a teacher is the PSLF or TLF programs forgive student debt after ten years of working as a teacher in a public school or just something in the public field after ten years of on time payments. The best part of being an athletic director is that seeing the result of the work that I put in. That meaning that if I hired the right coaches and set asides enough money for each sport, I could see how much each sport would have made and can set the budget for the next year even easier and that is the main part of being a successful AD. The next thing an AD would really want is to make sure the athletes are the top scholars and that they are following the rules and not getting and trouble but most importantly came to the college to graduate which would be a nice job done if he and the coaches get the right people and set it up correctly.

The job the AD must do is a simple but complex one. The reason I say that is because an AD has some unexplained job requirements that being going to every important booster club member party or charity event for the school. The job requires a massive amount of networking so that a person can get ahead of the curve of potential bad news for the programs. The ideal basic understanding of the job is to get bachelors in sports management, education management, or physical education and an MBA is suggested. The schools that hire an AD normally wants the AD to have past experience in finance and especially some type of coaching experience in any sport or life. The plan for me to get a job as an AD is in action by me working on getting my bachelors in sports management, and this summer I am getting an internship as a financial advisor at Northwestern Mutual and the next summer getting an internship or work as an assistant coach for a little league team. Those are the first steps in my plan to get the job experience I need then after college the plan is to get a job as either a football coach or financial advisor while working part-time as a coach and going to a transition of going to a high school coaching or middle school coaching. The next step after that is getting a job as a scout or coaching job for a college and move up from there to either an assistant AD or something similar to put me in line for it. The best benchmark for each one is after graduating from college then going to getting that first job either coaching and part-time coaching and moving up to the next step for college coaching and finally getting the interview or networking done to get an AD job.

The AD of a school is the face of its sports program. The next thing about being an AD is that it comes with perks of staying in the sports game and possibly getting out of student loans earlier. The problems that come with being an AD is all the events that one will have to go to and networking to get the inside information about potential coaches and events that might make the school sound bad. The job of being an AD comes with a massive amount of responsibility but it also comes with the best perks that come with a nice amount of money and an easy way out of student loans. The plans are in action right now by me working on my bachelor’s degree and working on it step after step.