Steve Podmorrow is our head of athletics department at SOSS. There is so much time and work involved with his position as athletics director. Mr. Podmorrow acts as a liaison for the community. The girl’s field hockey team only has one coach who is a teacher at the moment and those who aren’t, such as Mr. Gibson, are in touch with the school through Mr. Podmorrow. Whenever there are meetings for the sports teams at a regional level he gets to head up there and represents all the coaches for the sports teams at SOSS. Being in a position such as his can sometimes be a bit of a nightmare. Sometimes, 15 to 20 emails come in a day that has to do with the sports teams. People who want more information on something, trying to schedule time to do things, information on uniforms, and emails like that. It gets to be a lot of work. Budgeting for the sports teams is another item of interest that Steve Podmorrow has to deal with. All the sports teams have to deal with the cost of TOC’s, travel, uniforms, and equipment. Some of these budgets are separate and some things are even paid for by the parents and students participating. The athletes in each sports team may be participating in fundraising in a few of the upcoming years but this has not been done for a few years.
Mr. Podmorrow is in charge of making sure that the school sports are worked through properly such as the paperwork being filled out and all the fees collected. Another section of his responsibilities as athletics director is the nightmare of scheduling. At this time of year there are 7 basketball teams and 2 gyms. Trying to make time for them all to play and practice is very difficult. It is the same with the fields. There are 3 field hockey teams and one soccer team and we have two fields. This is a lot easier than the 7 basketball teams but can sometimes still be difficult to make it work. Mr. Podmorrow says,“Athletics director is a valuable position. It keeps things running, not necessarily smoothly but it keeps them running.” They have tried without the position in the past and it hasn’t worked out that well. Steve Podmorrow has made this position a success for three years now.
The athletics director can be a stressful job to maintain but being as Mr. Podmorrow is also head of the Physical education section, is a teacher himself, and is also a coach, he has to make room for all of them. He says that it makes things a lot easier that he is given a prep block in the day to get it all done. All year long there is some sport or another that is going on. His volleyball team doesn’t start up until early next year, but right now he has to deal with basketball, field hockey, and soccer. There is always something going on, something to worry about.
Being a teacher and organizing all these sports activities is often hard but it makes it a lot easier with the new gym. Having the new gym is an amazing improvement to the athletics department. “It is a bright gym that is great for hosting tournaments, bring up school spirit, and it is incredible to coach and play in.” says Steve Podmorrow. Having both gyms makes a lot of things a lot easier with the scheduling for both the sports teams and the PE classes.
Mr. Podmorrow has been a teacher at this school for 18 years and he has been a coach every year. He is currently a volley ball coach for grade 8’s. Teaching started to interest him from his own volleyball coach. Seeing that students really appreciated the extra-curricular he wanted to give that experience to his students. Even if the kids didn’t remember their PE classes they would surely remember their coaches and sports teams.
Photo and story supplied by grade 12 work experience student Samantha Ridley