Athletic directors pull big checks, analysis finds

Athletic director salaries

What high schools in the GWOC, SWBL and City League pay for athletic directors:

Full-time athletic directors

Athletic directors paid on stipend

District, school/ Athletic Director /Stipend/

Full-time position

* Retired in December 2011, no full-time replacement yet hired

** On unpaid family medical leave

*** Assistant principal duties included in salary

# Serves as district-wide athletic director; individual schools have athletic directors on stipend

## Split athletic director stipend

In the days following Brian Donoher’s arrest on suspicion of soliciting prostitution, Kettering City Schools Superintendent James Schoenlein fielded questions about the Fairmont High School athletic director’s salary.

The Dayton Daily News published Donoher’s annual pay at $101,492 in a story about his arrest, and the six-figure compensation raised some eyebrows. Schoenlein, a high school athletic director in the 1980s, said the time commitment alone makes the job a difficult one.

“In my mind, $100,000 is very fair,” Schoenlein said.

With high-end high school athletic director salaries reaching into six figures, some have wondered if the job is worth the price. But the modern-day athletic director, observers said, is as much marketer and rules interpreter as officials organizer and game-scheduler. And despite the sometimes-generous pay, many administrators wouldn’t want to work the long hours or deal with issues involving coaches, athletes and parents, superintendents said.

A Dayton Daily News analysis of athletic director salaries in the Greater Western Ohio Conference, Southwestern Buckeye League and Dayton City League showed that those working the position full time are paid an average of $80,591.

Other districts — in some cases looking to save money with one person holding multiple responsibilities — pay an employee as a full-time teacher and provide a stipend for athletic director work.

However, officials stressed that comparing athletic director salaries can be misleading, because responsibilities can vary between schools. Experience, longevity in a district, extra facilities and work outside of the athletic department can boost an director’s salary. Some have added titles to reflect their workload.

Whatever the responsibilities, the athletic director position is becoming more specialized.

“The days are gone when you take a warm body and say, ‘You’ll coach tennis or coach golf or be the athletic director,’ which is what happened 30 years ago,” said Bruce Whitehead, executive director of the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association. “Those days are gone. The liability is the biggest issue.”

Variety of duties

Matt Shomper, who serves as both athletic director at Tippecanoe High School and president of the Ohio Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association, updates a spreadsheet daily with his work responsibilities.

In the first six months of the academic year, from August until January, Shomper calculated that he worked 155 out of 174 days. That included 83 days involving “evening events,” or athletic events at which at least one athletic administrator (the athletic director or assistant athletic director, if a school has one) must be present.

His contract runs for 226 days, he said.

“I will be at 226 in April,” Shomper said. “But there’s work that has to be done after April, so there’s no choice. I have to keep working.”

That work for athletic directors, officials said, involves a variety of duties. They include: scheduling events, scheduling buses or transportation to events, communicating with and requesting funds from booster clubs, maintaining facilities, ordering uniforms, supervising events, following OHSAA rules and, in some cases, coordinating school-wide volunteer requirements.

“That’s just scratching the surface,” Schoenlein said, noting that at Fairmont there are about 800 athletes in 20 sports and more than 100 paid or volunteer coaches. “My guess would be Brian Donoher worked 100 hours per week.”

Donoher was arrested Feb. 1 and later charged with soliciting a prostitute. The Kettering school board approved a recommendation to consider the termination of Donoher’s contract, and Donoher has requested a hearing on the matter.

Another recent example has underlined athletic directors’ responsibilities for handling money. Jay Minton, the athletic director and football coach at Wayne High School, could be held responsible for $4,176 in missing gate receipts from a Sept. 9, 2011, Warriors home football game, even though he never handled the money, because his department is responsible for the funds.

Shomper said some athletic director salaries could look attractive, but the time commitment isn’t as obvious.

“A lot of guys get into this not knowing what it is, and it can eat them up,” Shomper said. “If you want to get in this for the money, don’t look at the hourly rate.”

Increasing options

For several years, the Brookville school district employed one person as both high school assistant principal and athletic director. The district then decided that was too much work for one person and tapped Mike Lindsey, a teacher in the building, to move into the athletic director’s office.

To promote flexibility, Lindsey remains part of the teachers’ association bargaining unit and can enter the classroom when necessary because he holds the proper credentials. For that, he receives a salary of $64,923.

Lindsey also receives a stipend of $6,533 to serve as athletic director, making Brookville one of 11 schools in the GWOC, SWBL and City League to pay its high school athletic director on a stipend. Brookville Superintendent Timothy Hopkins said the flexibility of placing an athletic director in a classroom when necessary is an attractive part of the stipend system.

“In our size of district, like a lot of others, you’re trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip,” he said.

Some add district-wide responsibilities for the athletic director. At Oakwood, AD Mark Hughes earns a salary of $100,749, which includes positions on the district’s Administrative Leadership Team that makes decisions on non-athletic matters and the district-wide calendar committee. His title is Director of Athletics and Student Activities.

Mary Jo Scalzo, the Oakwood City Schools superintendent, said the athletic director position also requires a high level of public relations and an “amazing amount of hours,” which can add to the decision on compensation.

“It requires leadership,” Scalzo said. “I’m not so sure we often look at first blush at that position as one of leadership, but that’s what it involves.”

Others said that athletic directors have enough responsibilities to make full-time positions or assistant athletic directors worthwhile. At Northmont, football coach Lance Schneider is one of two assistant athletic directors for athletic director Robin Spiller, who also has assistant principal duties at the school.

Schneider said he is the athletic administrator at some events, which eases the time strain on Spiller. He also relies on Spiller to communicate information from league and state association meetings that could affect his job.

Understanding and following OHSAA rules and regulations is another challenge, officials said. The association’s handbook includes eight pages of the organization’s constitution, 21 pages of bylaws and 18 pages of sports regulations.

“It’s not simple to read,” said Tony Mantell, superintendent of the Clay Local School District in Portsmouth and president of the Ohio High School Athletic Association Board of Directors. “A lot of things that come down even from the OHSAA have to be so legal-specific, you need a second-year law student to probably help you sometimes.”

That’s why, superintendents said, the athletic director position is worth a sometimes-generous salary. Whitehead, of the national athletic administrators association, said from his experience a high school athletic director earning six figures is “the exception rather than the rule,” but it’s also a position he feels is worth the money.

“In my personal opinion, I would say the position of athletic director in a district may be the most difficult position,” he said. “That’s in terms of the variety of responsibilities and the hours they’ll put in during a week.

“There’s just no other job like it.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7389 or knagel@Dayton DailyNews.com.