Committee Gets Moving on Better Organization of Middle School Sports

The Piedmont Middle School Sports Committee, launched in July, is tasked with conducting a review of the strengths and weaknesses of PMS’s sports department, which is run by the Piedmont Recreation Department.

Committee Chair Nick Levinson reported at the Recreation Commission meeting Wednesday that the committee had so far come up with various short-term action items and developed a timeframe and deadlines to ensure the work gets done.

“We had a meeting last week and I thought made really good progress on a bunch of the issues we’ve been pursuing,” said Levinson.

Communication and attendance were the two main issues that the committee found could be addressed in the short term, said Recreation Commission Chair Dick Hunt, also a committee member. 

One of the most pertinent action items was Team Snap, an online program that helps coaches, parents, and players understand how the sports schedule works, and allows these groups to indicate their availability for various activities. 

The committee will implement Team Snap for the different PMS sports teams, starting with the boys’ and girls’ basketball season.

“I think that’s really going to be helpful for the coaches that we hire and for the team parents, just in improving communication, and getting everything straight,” said Levinson.

Another upcoming initiative is a review and revision of the Recreation Department’s handbook compiled for coaches in an effort to make it more accessible and user-friendly. The committee also aims to create an additional handbook for team parents.

The handbook will be presented at the next sports committee meeting in mid-December, after which it will be sent to all coaches to be used in the spring and onwards.

“This is a communication tool that’s going to let everybody know what the  expectations are and what they’re supposed to do at various times during the year,” said Levinson.

Other initiatives in development include online registration for middle school sports, meetings with various sports coaches at the start of each season to discuss what’s expected of them, and the setting up of a liaison between the boosters and the recreation department for each sport.

Levinson said the committee would also look at tightening the surveys after each season, especially regarding volleyball.

“In terms of the evaluations and some other components of [the volleyball] program, for next year we’re going to try tighten that up, make that more comparable to how basketball works,” said Levinson.

Recreation Commission Member Kimberley Hebert criticized the lack of organization of the girl’s volleyball season, stating that compared to the boy’s flag football season, it was “night and day.”

She stressed the importance of girls getting involved in sports, and said the goal should be to encourage girls to keep playing when they enter high school. 

Hunt said the committee was well aware of the problem.

“Whether this has been a chronic situation or just a recent situation, [volleyball] has been a little bit of an orphan without an advocate,” he said.

Hebert also suggested changing the overall sports' schedule to coincide with the high school’s, which currently follows a different schedule.

“We don’t want kids picking basketball over baseball [because] when they get to high school, it’s a completely different season,” she said.

Hunt said scheduling fit into a longer term plan for the committee, and would be tackled next year.

Recreation Department Director Mark Delventhal said he and his staff had tackled these issues over the years.

“I’m convinced that we cannot solve all these problems, but by coordination and some planning, I think we can solve some of them,” he said.