Athletics Task Force Report Part 1

Athletics Task Force Report Part One • February 2014

Athletics Task Force Report Part I • February 2014

Introduction The athletics program at Collegiate School is fundamental to the School’s mission and student experience. Given the important role sports play in instilling the core values of the School, Collegiate’s leadership periodically reviews shifting internal and external factors that can impact the program’s effectiveness.

Dramatic changes in school and youth sports programming and philosophies over the past decade have compelled school athletics programs across the nation to examine how to meet their students’ changing needs. While many continue to participate in school-based traditional sports, a growing number are choosing non-traditional activities to meet a curriculum-related sports requirement, or are opting into independently-operated programs with schedules that mirror their school-based teams’ programs. At the same time, schools are increasingly encouraging specialization among athletes and shaping the makeup of their student bodies with talent that can lead to a winning program.

With these factors in mind, the Collegiate School Board of Trustees commissioned a formal review of the School’s athletics program last year. An Athletics Task Force, comprised of members of the Board of Trustees and Administration convened during the 2012-13 academic year to assess current and emerging trends in school athletics, and Collegiate’s position within that landscape.

This report is Part I of the Task Force’s findings and provides an overview of Collegiate School athletics offerings and student participation. Recommendations and strategies based on these findings, and on the results of a Collegiate stakeholders survey, will be shared with the Collegiate community in Spring 2014, when the Task Force issues Part II of its report.

Who We Are PROGRAM PHILOSOPHY MIRRORS SCHOOL VALUES Collegiate School’s athletics program reinforces the School’s mission and values by seeking to model and teach sportsmanship, teamwork, leadership and a strong work ethic.

The athletics program includes

83 TEAMS and 140 Coaches engaged in the following sports: Football • Field Hockey • Cross Country • Tennis • Volleyball • Basketball Indoor Track • Swimming/Diving • Lacrosse • Soccer • Softball • Baseball Track • Wrestling • Indoor Soccer* • Golf* 24 Varsity Teams (11 Boys, 11 Girls, 2 Co-Ed Teams*) 29 Junior Varsity Teams (15 Girls, 12 Boys, 2 Co-Ed) 30 Cub Teams (17 Boys, 13 Girls) In the past five years (2008-2013), Collegiate has won: League of Independent Schools (LIS) championships - 20 Girls’ State championships - 9 Prep League championships - 12 Boys’ State championships - 7 All Metro Player of the Year - 3 Our coaches have received numerous awards over the past five years (2008-2013) in the various sports, including: LIS Coach of the Year - 19 Prep League Coach of the Year - 8 VISAA Coach of the Year - 3

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Student Participation Among the eight independent schools Collegiate competes against in the Prep League and League of Independent Schools (LIS), Collegiate ranks 5th for the number of 9-12 grade boys participating in Prep League sports, and 2nd for the number of Upper School girls participating in LIS sports.

Prep League # of Student Athletes Woodberry Forest 405 Fork Union 322 St. Christopher’s 294 Norfolk Academy 258 Collegiate School 249 Trinity Episcopal 212 St. Anne’s-Belfield 170 Christchurch School 166

LIS # of Student Athletes St. Catherine’s 288 Collegiate School 265 St. Gertrude 261 Norfolk Academy 247 Trinity Episcopal 204 St. Anne’s-Belfield 175 St. Margaret’s 98 Covenant School 96 Steward School 92

Participation in Traditional Team Sports Peaks in Middle School.

While a majority of Middle Schoolers participate in a Collegiate athletics offering once they reach 7th Grade, participation declines when these students enter Upper School. In Grades 9-12, students enjoy a broad range of opportunities and often fulfill the two-season participation requirement in something other than a team sport. As an indicator of both growing specialization and diversification of interests, only 47 seniors received Directors’ Awards for playing an Upper School sport for three consecutive seasons between 2011 and 2013.

Non-Traditional Athletics Program Options are Being Selected More Frequently.

Upper School offers yoga, dance, fitness and an Outdoor Club as options for obtaining a sports credit. Over the past two years (2010-11/ 2011-12), these options were selected 193 times in Grades 9-12, with an additional number of students choosing the Upper School fall play and set crew; general athletics waivers, or rowing athletics waivers 135 times during that same period.

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Who We Are cont.

Collegiate Faculty Continue to Fill Many Coaching Positions.

In keeping with the teacher-coach model traditionally adopted by independent schools nationwide, approximately 40% of Collegiate’s 140 coaches are also Collegiate faculty.

College Counseling Office Provides Strategic Support for Athletes.

While each student is assigned a college counselor to assist with the college admission process, one counselor in particular serves as a resource for students and parents seeking guidance in regard to college athletics recruiting. Additionally, Collegiate’s College Counseling Office and Athletics Department annually co-sponsor NCAA Night for 9th-12th Graders interested in playing a sport in college.

Collegiate Athletes Consistently Play College-Level Sports.

In the past five years, 54 Collegiate graduating seniors entered institutions of higher education as members of an athletics team, including 11 student athletes in the class of 2013.

The Athletics Department Staff Has Expanded to Meet Program Needs.

In 2004, the Collegiate athletics program staff consisted of 2 co-athletics directors and a part-time administrative assistant. A decade later, the staff is comprised of: 1 Athletics Director 2 Associate Directors 1 Full-time Administrative Assistant 1 Coordinator of Robins Campus events and Youth Sports programs 2 Full-time Athletic Trainers 2 Sports Performance Coaches 3 Field and Equipment Coordinators

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Athletics Facilities Serve Students K-12 But Gym Space Remains a Need On any given day, a majority of Collegiate’s sporting facilities are in use. Below is a list of those facilities and the years in which they were constructed and/or renovated. Some of the School’s indoor facilities will need work and/or expansion in the near future.

Mooreland Campus West Gym Seal Athletics Center Jacobs Gym Grover Jones Football Field Jim Hickey Track Athletics Practice Field

Built / Renovated 1953 / 2001, 2008 1984 /2000, 2013 1961 / 2001, 2012 2005 2001 / 2011 2007

Robins Campus Baseball Building Athletics Building Tennis Building Williams-Bollettieri Tennis Center Sam Newell Baseball Field Softball Field Cross Country Trail Fields 1-4, 7-12 Field 6 (Artificial)

2008 2009 2010 2010 2007 2007 2007 2000 2005

Collegiate School Aquatics Center

2012

Survey Reveals Program’s Value As part of its assessment, Collegiate’s Athletics Task Force engaged the Southeastern Institute of Research, Inc. (SIR) to study how Collegiate’s athletics program is viewed and valued by the School’s various constituents.

Information provided in this section is taken directly from SIR’s November 2013 report on the survey’s key findings. As stated previously, the Task Force is using this data and other information and findings to formulate the recommendations and strategic goals to be released in the Spring.

Survey Summary: Results Show Majority of Stakeholders Believe Character, Commitment and Connectedness Exemplify Collegiate’s Athletics Program.

SIR presented the summary below as important take-aways from the survey of Collegiate stakeholders, which included current students, parents, faculty and staff, and alumni: First and foremost, everyone values and feels a part of Collegiate’s athletics program.

Over a thousand people (1,181) participated in this survey. Moreover, over half (589) of the survey respondents across all stakeholder groups want to remain involved, offering to help the ATF (Athletics Task Force) if additional input is needed in preparing the ATF report. This level of commitment and support is, in and of itself, a key finding of this survey initiative. Collegiate’s athletics program is everyone’s program.

Collegiate’s athletics program is not broken. To the contrary, Collegiate’s athletics program receives the highest quality ratings compared to all other school programs.

Overall satisfaction with the athletics program today is high as well. Compared to the school’s other program areas, the athletics program is not perceived as a priority area or one that needs more emphasis at this point in time. There is clear consensus across all stakeholders that Collegiate should focus most on teaching quality/faculty excellence and character building.

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It is clear that values are the key and they must be reinforced. All of the stakeholder audiences, including students, underscore the importance of the values-based attributes that help define the school’s athletics program. As Collegiate builds out its athletics-related physical assets, it may be important to reinforce the “values-related” attributes of the athletics program as the unifying foundation of the overall program.

The biggest opportunity or growth area for the school’s athletics program centers on coaching. The overall program will benefit from exploring ways to better support coaches in advancing Collegiate’s values and developing coaches’ expertise and experience with the sport. These two areas are also key drivers of overall satisfaction with the athletics program.

Lastly, the athletics program is an important topic that is often defined and characterized by personal experiences and, in some cases, concerns and issues that have been experienced first hand. Almost all respondents included very thoughtful verbatim comments to open ended questions throughout the survey. These personal responses added rich, emotional context to many of the statistical numbers presented in this Executive Summary and in the full report.

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Survey Reveals Program’s Value cont.

Personal Perspectives on Collegiate’s Athletics Program Many stakeholders accepted SIR’s survey invitation to provide additional comments on Collegiate’s athletics program, which reinforces how personal the program is to most stakeholders. Below is a verbatim sampling of their comments. Survey respondents’ names were not associated with their comments. Please note that every member of the Athletics Task Force read every comment, as an important step in helping devise the recommendations and goals, that will be forthcoming in Spring 2014.

Relative Importance of Athletics Program “I would be most satisfied if athletics were more evenly balanced with other extracurricular and academic options. I feel we should be allowing students a more well-rounded set of options for team-building experiences.” – Staff/Faculty Respondent “Collegiate has excellent facilities and a supportive coaching staff. My only complaint is that athletics sometimes appears to be a more valued program than academics, which I believe should not be the case.” – Student Respondent “I think that athletics is important, but not as important as Collegiate currently makes it.

I sent my child to Collegiate for the academics and to have experience in many different activities.” – Parent Respondent

Performance of Athletics Program

“Very satisfied overall with Collegiate’s athletics program. Just needs to continue our strong tradition of excellence while also hiring and training the most qualified and motivated coaches and staff for each sport.” – Student Respondent “As an athlete you feel like the entire athletics program and your coaches really care about developing you as a player and well-rounded person, rather than just caring about statistics and championships.” – Student Respondent “We have won the Sportsmanship Trophy for our league many times. I think this is the most important part of the program. Yes, we win—a lot. But the most important part to me is that our coaches instill the values of sportsmanship in our players.” – Staff/Faculty Respondent

“The athletics program does a great job teaching the students sportsmanship, discipline, courage, and the advantages of a healthy lifestyle.” – Staff/Faculty Respondent “I have been very pleased with the Collegiate athletics program so far. I think there is some tweaking that needs to be done but I don’t really see any major overhauls that are 8

necessary. The ‘tweaking’ involves character development, responsibility, and figuring out how to instill teamwork and the student’s ethic in practice.” – Parent Respondent

Expectations of Athletics Program “Learning to work on a team, a true team, is one of the most valuable and important experiences a developing person can have.” – Alumni Respondent “Athletics is important for many reasons. It teaches you how to be part of a team, sportsmanship, humility, how to win and how to lose. It makes students more well-rounded.” – Alumni Respondent “I think the fields and opportunities are impressive. Being on a team is so important— learning to work together even if the sport involves individual competitions—can change a kid’s life.” – Parent Respondent

Areas for Improvement

“Too much focus on improving facilities and not enough on building a team with leadership and character.” – Parent Respondent “Always room for improvement. The experience is not consistent from sport to sport. Some strong coaches and some not so strong coaches. Some coaches do a good job of developing the players/program early on and some do not.” – Parent Respondent “Collegiate seems to have invested a great deal in its athletics facilities. I am not sure if it has invested as much in its coaching staffs, which I think is more important than facilities.” – Alumni Respondent “Only a handful of coaches work on every player instead of just those most skilled at the beginning of the season, and by doing so (by working with every player) build a strong team of talented players during the season, who grow not only as confident individuals but also as competitive athletes.” – Parent Respondent

Lower School Parents’ Perspectives

“Cougar Quest is starting to offer other options like track and swim team. My daughter is not interested in lacrosse or soccer, so I am looking at these as options. It would be nice to see organized sports for the younger kids like these.” – Parent Respondent “I love that athletics is seen as a way of developing character and discipline which is paramount to our primary goal of driving the ability to achieve and conquer any hurdle towards my child’s academic capabilities and excellence.” – Parent Respondent 9

Survey Reveals Program’s Value cont.

Survey Participants and Methodology More than one thousand Collegiate constituents (1,181 individuals) participated in this survey, which was conducted via an online questionnaire and crafted with cooperation from the Task Force. The survey was conducted May 16-31, 2013.

An email with the survey link was issued to 6,643 Collegiate constituents twice (the initial email, followed by a reminder seven days later) and yielded an 18% response rate.

Completed interviews were submitted by: Students: n=305 Faculty/Staff: n=70 LS Parents: n=133 Alumni: n = 395

MS/US Parents: n=278

Given the total universe and 18% response rate, this survey’s margin of error is +/-2.56 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

Top 10 Key Findings in SIR Survey SIR surveyed a representative sampling of students, faculty and staff, parents and alumni to gauge interest in, satisfaction with and support for Collegiate’s current athletics program. The survey revealed these 10 key findings, which are listed verbatim: 1. Collegiate’s overall rating in accomplishing its mission is high. Across all stakeholder audiences, Collegiate is rated highly on accomplishing its overall mission.

The combined “top two box scores” (5 and 4 ratings on a 5 point scale) for each stakeholder audience in rating Collegiate in “accomplishing its overall mission” are detailed below: Students = 75% Faculty/Staff = 74% MS/US Parents = 71% LS Parents = 75% Alumni = 76% 2. There is consensus that Collegiate should focus most on teaching quality/faculty excellence and character building, not its athletics program. All stakeholder audiences give relatively high overall ratings to all of Collegiate’s various programs— academic programs, character development, extracurricular activities, administrative responsibilities, student support, and athletics programs. When asked to think about emphasis or priorities for Collegiate’s future (e.g., which areas do you feel need more 10

or need less emphasis and divide 100 points among future initiatives), there is clear consensus across all stakeholders that Collegiate should focus most on teaching quality/faculty excellence and character building. Compared to the school’s other program areas, the athletics program is simply not perceived as a priority area or one that needs more emphasis at this time.

3. Collegiate’s athletics program receives the highest quality ratings compared to all other programs. Overall satisfaction with the athletics program today is high as well. Across all stakeholder audiences, Collegiate’s Athletics Program receives the highest quality ratings (99% to 100% giving a top 2 box score). Overall “satisfaction with the athletics program today” receives high rating scores that are very similar to Collegiate’s high rating with regard to accomplishing its overall mission. However, ratings on “satisfaction with the school’s athletics program today” vary by audience.

Middle and Upper School parents and students are relatively less satisfied with Collegiate’s athletics program (56% and 61% respectively) than Lower School parents (75%), faculty/staff (70%) and alumni (76%). Given Upper School parents’ and students’ greater involvement with the athletics program, the survey analysis and report give extra attention to this segment of respondents.

4. Top expectations of Collegiate’s athletics program today include sportsmanship, teamwork and the ability to relate to and support students. All stakeholder audiences rate the same top three attributes (out of 30 attributes) the highest in terms of expectations: sportsmanship, teamwork and the ability to relate to and support students. These are all “values-based” attributes, not facilities or support programs (e.g., training).

5. The top performance areas of Collegiate’s athletics program today are outdoor facilities, support facilities, sportsmanship, and training. While “values” receive the highest expectation ratings across all audiences, Collegiate’s outdoor facilities, support facilities, training and sportsmanship receive the highest performance ratings.

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Survey Reveals Program’s Value cont.

6. There are many strengths of the athletics program to build and maintain, and a few growth opportunities to improve. When comparing expectations to performance, the resulting gap analysis reveals key areas for future attention and focus. These areas fall in either the upper right (build and maintain) or upper left (growth opportunity) quadrants on the Opportunity Map. The key areas to build and maintain relate more to values and training: Build and Maintain Attributes

Category

Outdoor facilities

Facilities

Sportsmanship

Values

Athletic training

Training

Athletic conditioning

Training

Teamwork

Values

Emphasis on participation

Cub sports

Competitive excellence

Values

Leadership

Values

The biggest growth opportunities relate to more coaching Growth Opportunity Attribute

Category

Ability to advance Collegiate’s vision

Coaching

Ability to relate to and support students

Coaching

Expertise and experience with the sport

Coaching

Leadership development Balance with academics and personal time

Athlete education and orientation Values

7. Two of the growth areas—ability to advance Collegiate’s values and expertise and experience with the sport —are also key drivers of overall satisfaction with the athletics program.

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8. Alumni value Collegiate’s athletics program, and many follow the program today.

Alumni respondents rate Collegiate’s athletics program very high (81%). Over a third (38%) of alumni reported that they attended a Collegiate athletics game this year and almost two-thirds (64%) say they regularly or occasionally follow Collegiate’s athletics program today. Alumni believe the athletics program is very similar today to what it was when they attended Collegiate. Through the survey, alumni were asked to come up with three words that best describe the athletics program when they attended the school and today.

9. The majority of Collegiate’s stakeholders feel the “competitiveness” level is appropriate and should not be altered. Through all of the questions that included competitiveness, the vast majority of respondents feel the current “competitiveness” level is appropriate. Students especially feel this way.

10. Lower School parents’ feel participation in a Collegiate sport is a valuable part of the overall “Collegiate experience.” Lower School parents reported that playing a Collegiate sport is a valuable part of the overall “Collegiate experience” (79%).

Moreover, there is great anticipation among lower school parents for their children to participate in Collegiate’s athletics program (79%). Additionally, Summer Quest sports camp offerings are popular among Lower School parents and their children; 67% say their child has attended this camp.

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Survey Reveals Program’s Value cont.

Trends in School Athletics Programming Collegiate’s athletics program remains committed to effectively serving students by honoring the mission and values that undergird the School’s program. To that end, the Board of Trustees and Administration monitor trends that affect everything from our students’ level of play and success in their respective sports, to the philosophies and methods guiding our competitors’ level of play and sportsmanship.

Youth athletics programs, starting at the earliest level through high school, are changing rapidly and will likely continue to be volatile for the foreseeable future. Key trends include: A growing emphasis on specialization at younger ages Pressure to prepare student athletes earlier and more intensively in order to qualify for college play and scholarships Growth in independently-operated sports programs that promise to groom students into elite athletes Growing demand for non-traditional sports offerings Diverging athletics philosophies among league schools

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Conclusion The survey and other assessments that Collegiate’s Athletics Task Force has commissioned and reviewed over the past year have yielded invaluable findings and feedback on the current environment in which the School’s athletics program is operating, perspectives of all stakeholders connected to the program, and areas in which the program could grow or improve.

As Part I of the Task Force report highlights, the majority of Collegiate stakeholders have expressed the desire that the School maintain its current practice of focusing on quality academics first, with athletics playing an important yet secondary role in helping students develop character, values, work ethic and resilience.

The Task Force fully evaluated survey results, verbatim comments, and other information obtained during the research phase of its assessment, and will fully consider these findings as it produces Part II of this report, which will be released in Spring 2014. The concluding section of the report will feature recommendations and strategies the School can adopt in response to these dynamics, and share efforts already underway to strengthen Collegiate’s program while maintaining the integrity of its mission and focus.

Athletics Task Force Members Mark Hourigan, Chair Keith Evans Karen Doxey Bonnie Cricchi Paul Koonce John Martin John Stallings John Walker

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demonstrated below.

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