By Gene Galin
Pittsboro, NC – An athletic director’s work can begin long before the first whistle and continue long after the gym lights go dark. For retired Graham High School educator Kyle Ward, those hours – mentoring coaches, maintaining facilities, answering emergency calls and enforcing rules – help explain why he believes school leaders need a closer understanding of the people carrying out their decisions.
During the October 11 edition of the AD Huddle, Ward joined Northwood High School athletic director Cameron Vernon and Southeast Alamance athletic director BJ Condron for a conversation about three decades in education and his candidacy for the Alamance-Burlington Board of Education. The discussion ranged from basketball memories and school opportunities to compensation, safety and disputed student residency arrangements.
Ward’s central argument was that leadership requires relationships, consistent expectations and firsthand knowledge of school operations. His sharper proposals included closer scrutiny of housing affidavits and severe consequences for coaches found to have recruited athletes improperly.
The interview also exposed questions that extend beyond one candidate or district: Who supports inexperienced coaches? Who performs work outside paid schedules? And how can schools enforce eligibility rules fairly without turning athletic directors into investigators?
A friendship that began with an open gym door
Vernon opened with a memory of being a young girls basketball coach in Chatham County and watching Ward’s Graham team overwhelm Northwood. Impressed by the team’s preparation, he wanted to learn how Ward ran his program.
A mutual connection, coach and educator Jim Hart, arranged an introduction. Soon afterward, Vernon was in Ward’s gym, observing practice and asking questions.
For Vernon, the invitation represented more than professional courtesy. Ward was willing to share knowledge with a coach who might eventually compete against him. That exchange grew into a friendship lasting roughly two decades.
Ward recalled Hart contacting him about the young coach and said welcoming Vernon seemed natural. He had benefited from experienced educators himself and believed that kind of assistance belonged in the profession.
“One of the things that’s missing in the coaching ranks today is mentors,” Ward said.
He linked that concern to the difficulty athletic directors face filling vacancies. In his experience, schools sometimes must hire coaches with limited preparation because available candidates are scarce.
The solution he described was practical: let younger coaches watch, ask questions and see how experienced colleagues handle practices and athletes. The opening story gave the discussion a concrete example of leadership through access rather than authority.
Finding a career through recreation basketball
Ward traced his interest in education to a recreation basketball opportunity when he was 18.
After graduating from Graham High School, he attended Alamance Community College without a clear career destination. A local recreation coach invited him to help with a youth team.
Ward wanted the players to learn organized offensive plays and man-to-man defense before entering middle school basketball. Working with those children helped him recognize what he wanted to do professionally.
“I want to become an educator,” he recalled thinking. “I want to be a basketball coach.”
His route into teaching included student teaching with Hart at Southern Alamance and a short teaching assignment during the 1996-97 school year. He described an early setback involving his teacher examination, followed by an opportunity at Graham Middle School.
His coaching direction also changed. Initially interested in helping with boys basketball, he was encouraged to assist longtime Graham girls coach Don Amos, whose program needed another adult.
Ward said he questioned whether his intense personality would fit that assignment. Once he began working with the players, however, he found them receptive to his expectations.
The account showed a career shaped by invitations, setbacks and changing opportunities. Before Ward became the mentor Vernon remembered, other educators had helped him find a place in schools and coaching.
Building a program and recognizing exhaustion
Ward eventually became Graham’s interim girls basketball coach when Amos underwent back surgery and could not return for the season. The arrangement later became permanent.
At one stage, Ward was simultaneously coaching middle school basketball and assisting at the high school. He recalled four games in a week and two practices in an evening, with the high school’s late practice allowing him to participate in both programs.
He also described the demanding rhythm of a successful varsity season.
After Graham’s 2007 state championship appearance, Ward said he was so exhausted the following day that getting out of bed was difficult. On Monday, another coaching responsibility awaited: tennis.
He told his athletic director he would finish that tennis season but could not continue the assignment afterward. Basketball already occupied much of his calendar through summer workouts, camp and preparation for the next season.
That decision illustrated a limit even committed educators face. Success can extend a season while leaving the next obligation untouched.
Ward remembered the basketball work with affection, but he did not present exhaustion as a sustainable operating plan. His experience offered a reminder that schools depend on people whose capacity is finite, even when their willingness to help seems otherwise.
Athletic administration has no clear offseason
Asked which job was harder, coaching or athletic administration, Ward answered without hesitation: athletic administration.
A coach may have an identifiable season, he said, while the athletic director remains responsible throughout the year. Facilities, paperwork, coaching oversight and preparation continue when students are away.
Ward described Alamance County athletic directors as working under an 11-month pay arrangement while facing responsibilities during the remaining month. That description was his account of the job; the interview did not include contracts or a district compensation schedule.
“There is no month off,” he said. “We just don’t get paid.”
Vernon said summer work is essential to having programs ready when fall athletics begin. He urged attention to coaching and athletic director stipends as well as teacher compensation.
Ward’s argument was about the mismatch between scheduled pay and continuing expectations. Someone still must prepare fields, complete administrative tasks and make sure coaches are ready.
He also favored the term “athletic administrators,” emphasizing the responsibility behind a title often associated primarily with games.
Communication can prevent the first crisis
Ward identified another difference between coaching a team and supervising an athletic department: the athletic director may receive the first complaint about a problem someone else encountered.
A parent or community member can call before the coach has explained what happened. That leaves the administrator trying to respond without essential information.
Ward said he repeatedly urged coaches to keep him informed.
“Don’t keep me in the dark,” he said.
The message was less about controlling every interaction than ensuring the person responsible for responding understands the circumstances. A coach’s concern can become an athletic department problem quickly, especially when parents seek an immediate answer.
Ward also described emergency responsibilities beyond sports. At Graham, he said, he received calls about alarms, including overnight calls requiring someone to unlock the building.
Vernon said he has similar responsibilities.
Those examples expanded the picture of an athletic director’s workload. The role, as they described it, can include serving as a dependable contact when the school needs assistance outside regular hours.
For Ward, that dependability helps explain why athletic directors become the default call. It also supports his contention that decision-makers should understand the full assignment before assuming another task can simply be added.
Safety rules need support at the entrance
When Condron asked Ward to identify the biggest challenge facing athletic directors, his answer was safety.
Earlier, Ward had used the district’s clear-bag policy to explain his frustration with rules adopted above the school level and enforced by employees at events.
He recalled a confrontation with a volleyball official over a backpack. According to Ward, he required the official to leave the bag in a secured office, and the disagreement ended with the official leaving.
Ward said consistency mattered because spectators who followed the restriction would reasonably question an apparent exception.
His account was not independently corroborated in the interview, but it illustrated the enforcement burden he wanted policymakers to recognize.
Ward asked whether board members or central office personnel had helped Condron operate weapons screening at athletic events. Condron recalled central office assistance at an arts event but could not recall comparable assistance at athletics.
Ward also acknowledged changes in school security over his career, including school resource officers, cameras and weapons detection systems. His criticism focused on support for implementation rather than an argument that schools should abandon safety measures.
Growth, boundaries and a changing Graham
Ward’s discussion of Alamance County began with the traffic along the Interstate 40/85 corridor, which he used as a visible marker of growth.
He then turned to the community around Graham High School, where he grew up and spent much of his working life. He attended local elementary, middle and high schools before returning as an educator.
Ward said the demographic composition of Graham’s school community had changed substantially. He also criticized attendance boundaries and decisions surrounding Southeast Alamance High School.
In his view, different redistricting choices could have produced a different outcome for Graham and Cummings. He argued that uncertainty over proposed school identities and subsequent decisions contributed to families leaving their attendance areas.
He pointed to Graham’s football situation as evidence of a diminished athletic program, saying the school currently had only a junior varsity team.
Ward argued that athletic success can influence school morale and, through morale, academics.
His comments identified an issue for public scrutiny: how growth and attendance decisions distribute enrollment, opportunities and resources among established schools and newer campuses.
Opportunities that deserve recognition
Vernon also asked what Alamance-Burlington schools were doing better than when Ward began.
Ward initially struggled to answer, explaining that his experience was concentrated at Graham. The discussion then moved to specific opportunities the participants valued.
Vernon praised Alamance-Burlington’s middle school athletic offerings, particularly football and wrestling, which he said were not offered in his district’s middle school programs.
Ward added cross country and track to the list of developments he had seen.
The comparison became a discussion of access. Vernon said community leagues can offer alternatives, but fees and transportation can make participation difficult for families, especially parents managing multiple jobs.
School-based activities, he suggested, can reduce some of those obstacles.
Ward also highlighted academic and career programs, including Graham’s Pre-Collegiate Academy, Elon Academy and career and technical education offerings.
He cited welding, a fire academy and communications instruction at Graham, along with broader district opportunities in automotive fields, culinary education and nursing.
His point was that students need meaningful options beyond a single expectation of attending a four-year university.
The exchange broadened a conversation dominated at times by frustrations. Ward acknowledged that schools had added pathways that were unavailable when he was a student or beginning teacher, and he described those additions as important progress.
Taking classroom experience into a campaign
Ward said he retired June 30 and had decided approximately two years earlier that he would run for school board after leaving employment.
He presented his candidacy as an effort to bring experience from classrooms, gyms and athletic administration into district decisions. His campaign is for the Alamance-Burlington Board of Education.
Ward said his disagreements with existing board members were not personal. His criticism was that they did not ask enough questions or sufficiently challenge decisions.
He recalled nearly missing the filing deadline before seeing a newspaper article the evening before it closed. He said he filed the next morning.
Asked what he would seek in his first year if elected, Ward rejected the idea of an extended settling-in period.
One priority would be longer, more substantive school visits by board members and senior central office staff. He criticized brief visits centered on photographs and said leaders should remain long enough to observe ordinary school conditions.
He also proposed substitute teaching by central office personnel and potentially board members.
Compensation is a priority; details remain open
Ward’s other major campaign priority was increasing the local teacher supplement.
He said Alamance-Burlington loses experienced teachers to nearby districts offering more compensation, sometimes within a relatively short drive.
Ward was explicit about his objective.
“We have got to increase the teacher supplement,” he said.
Vernon added that coaching and athletic administration stipends deserve attention, particularly when employees perform necessary work during months outside their pay arrangement.
Together, their comments framed compensation as a question of retaining staff and recognizing actual duties.
The conversation also left room to examine workload alongside pay. If schools rely heavily on a small group of employees for event supervision, facilities and emergency response, compensation is one part of a larger staffing question. Ward’s position was clear at the level of priority.
Housing affidavits raise difficult fairness questions
The longest and most contentious discussion concerned transfers, residency and shared-housing affidavits.
Ward distinguished between formal transfers and housing documentation, saying affidavits were the greater source of concern in his experience.
He alleged that some arrangements were used to establish an appearance of residency without a genuine move. Vernon described similar concerns in Chatham County.
Ward said the district had approximately 1,500 shared-housing affidavits during the previous year. He acknowledged that he did not know how many involved athletes and said a requested breakdown had not reached him.
Condron described residency enforcement as a complex administrative problem. He praised recent efforts to pause participation in cases needing scrutiny, while questioning whether schools have enough personnel and systems to investigate consistently.
“We are not private investigators,” he said, recalling a statement at a regional meeting.
His concern shifted the discussion toward responsibility: athletic directors may flag a problem, but determining residency can require information and work beyond ordinary athletic administration.
Vernon approached fairness from the perspective of a parent whose child might lose playing time to someone manipulating residency rules. He distinguished that scenario from a legitimate move into a school’s attendance area.
The shared concern was consistency. A credible review process would need to address suspected misrepresentation without treating every family using shared housing as suspect.
Recruiting penalties and the unanswered evidence question
Ward also alleged that coaches within Alamance-Burlington had recruited players from other schools.
He advocated immediate dismissal and a permanent district coaching ban when credible evidence establishes such recruiting. He offered examples of evidence he considered meaningful, including messages or recorded conversations encouraging a student to change schools.
His position was a proposed penalty, not an announced district policy or a finding against a named coach.
Ward argued that strong consequences would discourage others and said milder responses had not been sufficient.
Ward tied his approach to three principles he said guided his career: fairness, honesty and consistency.
The challenge raised by the conversation is how those principles would operate in a disputed case. Fairness requires scrutiny of credible concerns, while consistency requires comparable treatment when the circumstances are comparable.
The conversation established Ward’s strong preference for enforcement.
Relationships remain the measure of leadership
Despite the intensity of the policy discussion, Ward’s clearest answer about successful coaching returned to relationships.
He said coaches must build connections with their players. His own approach, he explained, depended partly on students knowing him as a teacher during the school day as well as a demanding coach during competition.
Ward acknowledged that his confrontational style might be harder to sustain with today’s students and parents.
He also recalled educator Lynn Briggs, who taught him in middle school and stayed afterward to rebound and pass while he practiced his shot.
Asked what he hoped people would remember about his career, Ward answered: “How much I cared about the kids.”
Near the end, he credited his wife, Melissa, with supporting him through coaching, athletic administration and his campaign. He acknowledged that the frustrations of the job could follow him home.
Readers can watch the complete AD Huddle podcast to hear Ward’s proposals and Vernon’s and Condron’s questions in context.