Listening Post

AD/Coach Ricketts interview

A: How long have you been at PACHS

R: I guess right around 25 years

A: Have you ever been a coach or have you only been on the administrative side?

R: Oh no I’ve been a coach. I actually still coach boys basketball now so, yes

A: How long have you been the boys basketball coach for

R: I’ve been it for 12 years and then I took some time off and I’ve been back three or four years

A: Since you’ve been the athletic director how many new sports have you introduced

R: Oh my gosh. I don’t know. Let’s see, we’ve added swimming, golf, tennis, football, softball, I’m sure I’m missing something. Soccer, boys and girls, and I think that might be it.

A: What made you want to introduce so many different types of new sports?

R: As we grew, we were able to offer more. We were trying to meet the needs and try to enable our kids to do what they like and so as we grew and could support whatever sports we just kept adding.

A: Sports took a backseat to academics where I went to high school so how important do you think having a good athletic program in high school is for students

R: Well i do think you’re going to school for academics but our mission statement is three fold. And included in that is academics, fine arts, and athletics. We believe pretty strongly in that kids learn a lot of valuable life lessons participating in sports. We don’t call it extra circular, we call it co-circicluar. We consider it part of what we’re trying to get our kids to be.

A: Do you have an opinion on the correlation between kids staying in high school in general if they’re athletes? I’m not specifically talking toward PACHS, I’m talking about high schools across the board

R: I do think it helps. I think you have another group that’s relying on you when you’re part of the team. I think you have another person who takes an interest, that’s your coach. I don’t think it’s a huge issue at Prince Avenue. I will say this though, as far as our student retention, i do think it’s very helpful. i think if we don’t offer some sports people will look other places. But as far as it actually graduating, it doesn’t make a big difference here i don’t think.

A: Since you’ve been a high school coach for so long were there any issues you’ve realized over the years that have gotten better or have been overlooked?

R: I do think the quality of coaching, not only at our school but at all schools, has really improved. I think the facilities have improved dramatically. I think along with that the level of competition and overall status of most sports has gotten better and better.

A: Do you have any opinions on concussions, concussion rates, or how they’re doing them now as opposed to 20 or so years ago?

R: Well i mean obviously it has become something that is in the forefront of everything. I think there’s so much new information and trying to decipher what’s right. We’ve tried to increase our concussion awareness. We do free participation concussion screenings to help us better evaluate kids if there’s the chance that they might have one. I think the more information that comes out, the more people will change and adapt to make sure that people are trying to keep kids safe.

A: I’ve never heard of a high school offering concussion screenings, how do those work?

R: It’s kind of a three fold thing. Our athletic trainer, some of it is visual testing on computers, reaction skills, balance test, memory test. Things like that. It gives a baseline so that it’s helpful for professionals if we have a kid that we think might have a concussion. It gives them a baseline to compare to when they’re assessing the kid.

A: That’s awesome, I think every school should do that.

R: I know colleges do it, I know an awful lot of the schools in Athens are doing them now too.

A: I was told that you guys introduced a new boys soccer team for the spring

R: We did

A: That’s exciting. How do you think it’s going to go? Do you think there are any initial hurdles that you are going to have to get over, is there a lot of interest?

R: There’s plenty of interest. It’s like when you start anything. It’s going to take a while to get it going and get the success but our numbers are good and give us a few years and we’re going to be good.