ROGERS -- Keith Kilgore, the School District's new athletic director, said he wants to change the culture and mindset surrounding the athletic program.
"I want our coaches and athletes to understand we can lead the pack," said Kilgore, addressing the School Board during its meeting Tuesday.
Fast fact
Forty-six percent of Rogers students in grades eight through 12 were involved in athletics during the 2016-17 school year, according to the school district.
Source: Staff report
He pointed to the district's boys and girls cross country teams, which have won a combined 36 state championships.
"We're doing some great things. We need to polish those," Kilgore told the board. "In the areas that we need to up the ante, well, it's time to go to work."
The vision for athletics is to complement the academic success of Rogers Public Schools and be competitive in all sports, he said.
Kilgore, formerly an assistant principal and baseball coach at Heritage, was named athletic director in May. He replaced Mark Holderbaum, who resigned May 9 after serving in that position for 10 years. His presentation at Tuesday's board meeting was his first appearance in front of the board.
Two areas in which the district can change its culture is in how it trains athletes and how it promotes school spirit, he said.
The district introduced a training program to coaches focusing on strength, speed, plyometrics, conditioning, flexibility and agility. Weight rooms are being updated at Rogers and Heritage high schools, he said.
Kilgore also talked about the district's recent decision to make athletics part of the regular school day schedule in eighth grade. Football, volleyball and basketball joined the schedule last school year. Cross country, track, cheer and dance joined this school year.
Board members sought the addition of sports to the school day as a way of boosting competitiveness with peer districts in the area, especially Bentonville, Fayetteville and Springdale.
"Talking with the principals, there were a few schedule issues in the beginning, but it's been a smooth transition," he said, adding he'd like to introduce a plan for seventh-grade athletics soon.
Kilgore intends to have monthly round-table discussions with all the head coaches. He said his role includes doing whatever he can to support the coaches.
"That's one of the areas I'm going to focus on is being more visible to the coaches, be in the buildings, understand their concerns, what's going on," he said.
He also wants to start an athletic advisory board, a task force that may include board members, community members and district employees.
Installing Kilgore as athletic director was the latest in a series of big changes over the past two years in the athletic department.
Both Rogers High School and Heritage High School hired new head coaches for their football teams in 2016. The teams went a combined 6-14 last year, improving on the 1-19 record they combined for in 2015. Heritage also replaced its girls basketball coach last year and Rogers hired a boys basketball coach in April.
Superintendent Marlin Berry said Rogers' two head football coaches -- Tony Travis and Mike Loyd -- shared information about their programs with a civic group last week.
"When they were done, there was a buzz in the room about what great guys we had hired," Berry said. "What they shared about character and effort and getting kids to do the right thing, how to make it fun, it was really remarkable to hear those two guys talk about the philosophy of building programs."
Rogers High School has 200 students participating in football, a number Berry found amazing because trends nationwide show participation in football dwindling, he said.
Berry added the district has facility needs for certain athletic programs. Kilgore will lead the way in identifying those and posing solutions for them, Berry said.
"I will continue to do walk-throughs looking for ways to upgrade facilities," Kilgore said. "We have great facilities. We are proud of that. So we need to continue to find ways to upgrade."
Kilgore also hopes to boost school spirit by encouraging more students to come to games, so he has lowered the student price of admission to varsity events from $3 to $1, he said.
"Coaches always comment on a great student section. So that's something I think is going to get bigger," he said.
Nathan Gairhan, a board member, suggested the district be more aggressive getting businesses involved in the athletic programs through sponsorships.
"I think there's a great need there," Gairhan said. "I think there's a lot of folks who'd like to be involved if we just go back to them and do some outreach. It doesn't happen overnight, it takes a while."
The district has about $3.2 million budgeted for athletics for this school year, which would be a 3.3 percent increase over what the district spent in 2016-17.
Brian Jackson, a Rogers High School graduate and president of the board of the Rogers Mountaineers Athletic Hall of Fame, said he's excited about what Kilgore has done so far.
Many people think their schools put either too much emphasis on athletics or not enough. Jackson believes academics and athletics deserve equal weight.
"To me, athletics are as important as academics, because athletics is real-world," Jackson said. "It teaches you how to deal with things in the real world, how to work on a team, how to be counted on for something. It's things you don't learn in the classroom."
Creating a culture of excellence within the athletic programs will attract more students to those programs, he said.
"So I think that's why (Kilgore) is talking about being competitive, because that generates more interest and even more kids wanting to participate," Jackson said.
Bob Gardner, executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations, and Lance Taylor, director of the Arkansas Activities Association, released a joint opinion column last month on the importance of high school athletics to students and the communities in which they live.
Research shows high school athletes have higher grade point averages and fewer absences than non-athletes, and communities benefit by coming together at games to support their teens, Gardner and Taylor wrote.
"We applaud their persistence, tenacity, preparation and hard work, regardless of the color of the uniform they wear," the column states. "We acknowledge that education-based, high school sports are enhancing their lives, and ours, in ways that few other activities could. And we agree that, regardless of what side of the field we sit on, attending a high school sporting event is an uplifting, enriching, family-friendly experience for all of us."
NW News on 09/25/2017