Former Sportswriter Knows a Good Story
July 22, 2013
By Rob Kaminski
MHSAA benchmarks editor
It’s not exactly “Man Bites Dog,” the old newspaper standard by which headline stories were determined.
But the role reversal that Rick Jakacki and Kevin Miller have experienced certainly makes for interesting reading.
And Jakacki, who spent 20 years as a sportswriter/editor with the Port Huron Times Herald, knows a good story.
After Miller, a former radio personality with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, moved to Michigan’s thumb to pursue a career in education, he yearned to keep his hand in athletics – so he began to work as a stringer on Friday nights covering prep football for the Times Herald.
It was a neat “hobby” for Miller. But for Jakacki, whose career was in print journalism, the steady hum of immediate, electronic mediums became increasingly difficult to ignore. Figuratively, the writing was on the wall.
“It’s always been said that you never treat anyone badly because you never know when it’ll bite you, or when someone can help you in the future,” Jakacki said.
“I saw the way the newspaper trend was going, and it was scary going to work. We were cutting back all the time, not covering as many events, not traveling as much, not filling people’s jobs, implementing furloughs. I always wanted to go out on my own terms, not have the paper tell me when to leave.”
Following the 2009-10 school year, the athletic director at one of the schools in the Times Herald coverage area announced he was leaving. John Knuth, the AD at Croswell-Lexington, was headed back to Marysville, where he’d built a prep volleyball power.
By then, Miller had become the superintendent at Cros-Lex, and had been submitting stories to Jakacki for years. Now, it was Miller’s turn to lend his newspaper “boss” a hand, one that Jakacki certainly had never bitten.
And so it was that Jakacki became an employee working for his former part-time employee.
He couldn’t be happier.
“I’ve never heard of a person going from sportswriter to athletic director, but talk about a smooth transition,” Jakacki said. “I’m working with all the same people I used to write about: ADs, students, coaches, officials. And now I’m at a school that plays the same teams I covered.”
The athletic office desk suits him just fine, and he’s easily shifted from story writer to storyteller. Coupled with his administrative duties, he’s become the Pioneers’ No. 1 cheerleader, lauding the exploits of the school’s 700-plus students, nearly 70 percent of whom participate in at least one extracurricular activity.
“We got a new gym and locker rooms in the fall of 2011, and a new training room and weight room this fall” Jakacki said, putting on his tour guide hat prior to a show-and-tell session. The new digs allow for increased MHSAA Tournament opportunities, and thus increased exposure for the school.
“The best atmosphere we’ve enjoyed since I began here was this fall’s MHSAA Volleyball Regional between Marysville and North Branch. It was electric; this place was packed,” he recalled.
It’s more than athletic events drawing people to Croswell-Lexington these days. Jakacki proclaims with equal enthusiasm that the school district recently ranked 20th among 560 in Michigan for academic achievement.
Extracurricular activity, including the Pioneer Activities Leadership Council, plays a vital role in the makeup of the student population.
“There are about 40 or 50 kids who meet with the principal and me on the second Friday of each month during the school year,” Jakacki said of the Council. “It’s after school, and they don’t get credit. But they show up to talk about various leadership ideas.”
If Jakacki sounds like a proud parent while extolling the virtues of his new workplace, well, that’s fine with him. The Pioneers’ student-athletes have become like family, adding to his own children: Liam (18), Cameron (14) and Zoe (10).
“It’s funny. Having three kids of my own, I got to watch them play a lot of sports,” Jakacki said. “After getting to know all these kids, it’s like watching my kids play. People sometimes ask, ‘How can you just go to a random baseball game?’ Well it’s like watching nine of my own kids. That’s something I didn’t expect when I took this job.”
So it is fitting that his office is across from the cafetorium, where traffic flow and student interaction is steady. And, now, so is the work.
“I was looking for job security, and I love dealing with kids and sports,” Jakacki said. “It was a perfect transition for me. Now I deal with them every day.
“What’s the old saying, as you get older don’t get a job, get something you love to do? That’s what I’ve done. If I work 12-hour days, I don’t mind because I love what I do.”
It’s a story the former sportswriter never tires of telling.
PHOTO: Croswell-Lexington athletic director Rick Jakacki stands in his school's gymnasium. He formerly covered the school as a reporter for the Port Huron Times Herald.
This is the final installment of a series, "Career Paths," focusing on the unsung contributions of athletic directors. See below for earlier installments.
Summit Academy North's McKoy to Bring Vast Experiences to MHSAA Staff
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
June 23, 2021
Will McKoy realized fairly early in his sports career at Northwest Halifax High School in Littleton, N.C., that he likely wouldn’t be picking up a college scholarship playing basketball or competing in track & field.
But he did figure out during those experiences what he wanted to do in college and after, thanks to the impact made on him by his basketball coach.
“He was the athletic director as well, and I thought that was the coolest job,” McKoy said. “From early on, when I was in high school, I knew that’s what I wanted to do – be a basketball coach and athletic director.”
McKoy got a taste of coaching while a student assistant from 2006-09 at Wayne State University. And when he graduated that spring, that’s what he figured he’d do next – teach physical education and coach basketball, landing a job at Detroit Henry Ford Academy School for Creative Arts. He would work toward landing an athletic director’s job eventually.
Two weeks after he was hired, and before school had even begun, eventually showed up – his new school needed an AD, and McKoy jumped in.
He learned quickly, and on the fly. And a decade later, his role in school sports has grown to include a statewide voice with an opportunity to make that level of impact daily, drawing on experiences as district athletic director, conference president, member of the MHSAA’s Representative Council as well as a Division I college football official and sergeant in the U.S. Army.
McKoy has been named to an assistant director’s position with the MHSAA, effective in mid-July. He will serve as the administrator for football and girls and boys basketball, among other responsibilities. He will be taking up many of the duties of current assistant director Nate Hampton, who will be retiring in July after 32 years on staff.
McKoy has served as district athletic director for Summit Academy North Schools in Romulus since 2011 after previously serving two years as athletic director at Henry Ford Academy. He also has served as president, vice president, and commissioner of multiple sports for the Charter School Conference, while working as an NCAA football official since 2009.
He has provided advocacy for schools statewide and perspective particularly from the Metro Detroit and charter school communities during his two years serving on the Representative Council, and those connections will continue to be valuable in his new role, as will his variety of past experiences.
“To me, the opportunity to affect change at the next level, and then working with a diverse group within the entire state – not just my niche, but the entire state – is exciting to me,” McKoy said. “Vitally for me, and I think part of the attraction of the position, was trying to figure out ways to bridge the gap between the suburbs, rural schools and city schools, particularly with some of the needs of the Detroit Public Schools and charter schools as well, trying to help them be successful with everything the MHSAA does to support those schools.”
Summit Academy North opened in 1996 for students grades K-5 and expanded instruction to include K-12 the following year, and athletics have increased their overall success substantially under McKoy.
He has increased the number of opportunities at all levels – notably with the creation of elementary intramurals and expansion of the middle and high school athletic program from 19 to a peak of 41 teams for grades 7-12, including 17 on the varsity level. Nine of those varsity teams have won a league title during his tenure. The baseball team has won eight conference championships with McKoy as AD, the softball team six and the boys cross country team last fall won its 10th-straight league title and sent a runner to the MHSAA Finals for the second-straight year.
The school’s boys basketball varsity advanced to the Division 2 Quarterfinals this season, after winning its first District and Regional championships. The football team has amassed its best four-year stretch (25-13), the bowling programs have sent at least one competitor to the Finals four straight seasons and the girls track & field team this spring won its first league title. The volleyball, girls soccer, boys soccer, girls cross country and wrestling teams also have won either a league or District title under his leadership of the department.
McKoy also oversaw the expansion of the Charter School Conference from eight to its current 16 member schools.
“We’re tremendously excited to have Will joining our staff,” MHSAA Executive Director Mark Uyl said. “His background, experience and energy are something we are thrilled to have in our building.”
McKoy received his certified athletic administrator (CAA) designation from the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) in 2014. He was named his region’s Athletic Director of the Year in 2019 by the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (MIAAA). In addition to the MIAAA and NIAAA, McKoy is a member of the Michigan Collegiate Football Officials Association (MCFOA) and Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan (BCAM).
His officiating experience has included working at the Division I level in the Mid-American Conference and Missouri Valley Conference. He also worked from 2014-16 and again during 2017-18 with the National Football League as an instant replay booth and field communicator and K-Ball coordinator.
McKoy is honorably discharged from the U.S. Army, having served as a human resources sergeant from 1999-2004 with assignments in Germany, Kuwait and also Iraq for 13 months during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education in 2009 from Wayne State University, and a master’s in sports administration from Wayne State in 2011.
McKoy is married to wife Terri McKoy and the father of sons William Jr. and Winston.
PHOTOS courtesy of William McKoy and Romulus Summit Academy North schools.