NANCY LARRABEE
Making the athletic director position her own
BY STEVE SHEPPARD
When the fall sports season ended a few weeks ago, athletic director Nancy Larrabee finally got a chance to unwind - she cooked Thanksgiving dinner for twelve.

Nancy Larrabee can draw on her experience as teacher and principal in her new position as athletic director. The versatile educator has been working in the Nantucket public schools since 1973.

Such is the life of a high school athletic director that downtime doesn't really exist. After her first four months on the job, Larrabee is steadily adapting to its peculiar demands and putting her own stamp on it.

For those who think being an athletic director is simply a matter of filling in schedules and making sure the equipment and uniforms are ordered, think again. Being a high school athletic director today, with the ever increasing number of teams for both boys and girls, requires the ability to juggle and manage time efficiently.

Throw in the complexities of living on an island, and now you've got something. "I don't think anybody realizes what goes into an athletic director's position," she said last Friday, "and when you add in Nantucket. . . . "

Part of Larrabee's job is to always keep on eye on the weather, and last Friday she was keeping an eye on the wind. A storm had been predicted and the East Windsor, Conn., basketball team had plans to scrimmage Nantucket at home. Would the boat go? It's a question mainland athletic directors never have to ask - unless their teams are traveling to Nantucket, of course.

"Other athletic directors only have to think about their own school buses; we have to arrange travel with offisland bus companies. And there's air travel, too."

There are also the tasks of arranging for game officials (and picking them up at the airport); ensuring the fields are cared for and prepared; overseeing the budget; coming up with practice schedules "that are fair to everyone;" attending weekly meetings of the Booster Club; making sure the scoreboards work and on and on.

As she has throughout her teaching career, Larrabee tackles the disparate aspects of her job and finds a way to make things work. This fall, she admits, she was learning by the seat of her pants. With her first sports season under her belt, she knows what to expect next year, and is already planning for it. Next year's football schedule, for example, is nearly set, with just two games left to fill in.

As with all new jobs, there was a learning curve to overcome. "The biggest challenge was understanding all the different pieces," she said, particularly with travel arrangements. "The Steamship Authority, the Hy- Line, the bus companies were all very helpful," she said. "Thankfully, we got through the entire fall season without incident."

Besides being proud of the soccer team's run through the state tournament, Larrabee saw it, too, as a means of gaining helpful experience. She discovered that tournament teams playing Nantucket aren't always aware of the vagaries of island travel and need a little help themselves.

And while the Mayflower League recently dropped Nantucket baseball and softball - citing travel demands as a major reason for the move - Larrabee isn't overly concerned about teams wanting to play here. "I have found that teams that come here come because they want to. They see it as a time for team-building. I had one coach tell me that a student came out for a sport because of the opportunity to travel to Nantucket."

It's a statement borne out by George Thomas, the former Nantucket coach and teacher who is now coach of the East Windsor, Conn. team (that did make it to the island after all). "The kids kept asking me when we were going to Nantucket," he said.

Besides travel considerations, Larrabee is also in charge of coordinating health and physical education curricula, which includes overseeing teacher evaluations. The multi-faceted demands of the position play to her strengths and experience as an educator.

She began her teaching career by returning home to Nantucket in 1973 as a physical education teacher. Since then, she has moved from the gym to the classroom to a principal's position and back to the world of athletics. "It worked out that with all my experiences I thought, 'Why not take the athletic director's job?' What a great way to bring it all together."

The interim between seasons was short-lived. Winter sports have already begun, and the spring coaches are already visiting her office.

When you're a high school athletic director, the calendar moves quickly indeed.

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