A Solid Pass Brian Kelley, director of activities and athletics and Timmy Jacobsson ’06, assistant director of activities and athletics, talk with Jarrad Jinks on retirement, transitioning roles and the sportier side of activities and athletics.
The grills light up and the bleachers gradually fill with students, their families and faculty. As you enter the front of school, the once distant, nondescript sounds now paint a clear picture—rackets thwack tennis balls on the roof-top courts, sneakers squeak on the high school gym’s hardwood floor. In passing, you catch a glimpse through the open gym door of a volleyball net and a desperate dive. Cheers overpower a hundred nearby conversations as you enter the courtyard. Even louder, the announcer blares over the loudspeaker. You notice the football game has already started. Spirit Day is a long-lived annual tradition. It runs smoothly, every year. The scale seems effortless, yet it’s impossible to see every game as seven different sports and fourteen different matches overlap each other hour-on-hour, throughout the day. Days like this, no matter how seamless, are a grand effort—the sports
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THE AMERICAN SCHOOL IN JAPAN
alone require collaborations between parent groups, student volunteers and faculty. All of them liaise with our Activities and Athletics department, run by director Brian Kelley and assistant director, Timmy Jacobsson. In his nine years as the assistant director, Timmy Jacobsson has not only helped coordinate the school’s co-curricular programming but has also taught and coached in high school. However, Timmy’s ties to ASIJ run much deeper than his nine-year tenure in the office. Timmy Jacobsson was adopted by Bill (FF ’75–’08, AP ’92–’06) and Sandra Jacobsson (FF ’72–’77, ’81–’87, ’95–’96, AP ’92–’06), both ASIJ faculty who dedicated over thirty years to ASIJ—as parents and as faculty in the physical education department. He joined Susan Huber’s (FF ‘88–’17, AP ‘88–’05) class for his first day of kindergarten and continued at ASIJ until he graduated with the Class
