As much credit as coaches and athletes get for their successes and achievements on the field, there’s one piece of the high school sports puzzle that often goes unnoticed, and that is the crucial role of the Athletic Director (AD).

Redmond is home to three high schools that each have a unique makeup: Redmond High School (RHS), a large, public 4A school with about 1,500 students; The Overlake School (1A), a private, college-preparatory school that serves 305 students in grades 9-12; and The Bear Creek School (2B), a small, private Christian School with an enrollment of 213 in grades 9-12.

While the AD’s individual roles and and responsibilities may change slightly depending on the school, one thing stays the same — they provide a high level of organization and stability, the “glue” that holds the athletic department together.

JOHN APPELGATE – REDMOND

Unlike the other ADs in Redmond, the Mustangs’ own John Appelgate, somehow finds the time to teach as well — two periods of American Government during the school year.

One characteristic he does share is that he is a former coach, assisting former football coach Mike Pluschke in 2007.

Appelgate explained that at the top of his priority list is managing the school’s athletics budget – not an easy task considering Redmond offers 18 different sports during the school year.

“One of the biggest pieces of the job is making sure we have enough money for the programs,” he said. “Also scheduling varsity, JV and C (teams) within the league, and finding non-league contests. All the administrative functions like ordering equipment… overseeing all the inventories, coaches’ certifications, hours, and things like that.”

In addition, Appelgate is responsible for the hiring and evaluation of new coaches, which he had to do after Pluschke resigned following the 2009 football season, conducting interviews and eventually hiring former Eastlake coach Jeff Chandler.

Despite being at a large school, the former Juanita High AD said he hasn’t felt much pressure for the Mustang teams to win more, citing the school’s strong sense of community and outstanding coaches.

“That’s one of the reasons people go out and compete in sports, because it is competition and they want to win,” he said. “But this community has been great. They’ve rallied behind the kids during the good seasons and the not-so-good seasons. I think the coaches have good relationships with the community, and it’s been pretty positive.”

In his fifth year at Redmond, Appelgate stated that the best part of his job is getting to dabble in all of the sports’ successes — whether it’s the girls’ golf team adding to its seven-year winning streak, or the football team savoring an upset victory — and seeing his student-athletes gain personally from their involvement in athletics.

“It’s huge, it’s really about them being a part of something that’s bigger than them,” said Appelgate on the benefits of athletic participation. “I really think (playing sports) helps the student-athlete learn how to be successful in a group setting. We learn the most sometimes when we lose, when we’re knocked down. You might have a kid that gets all As in class, and doesn’t learn that sometimes it doesn’t go your way. Out on the athletic field, it’s probably not going to go your way all the time, so how are you going to deal with it?”

JOHN WILEY – OVERLAKE

Overlake School AD John Wiley knew all along that sports was his calling, having worked for the Seattle Supersonics as an account executive fresh out of college.

But he became detached with the business side of it, and looked into returning to his high school alma mater and working more closely with the new generation of Owls coming through the ranks.

“I was an off-campus coach, and after a couple of years of that, my athletic director said he was stepping down,” Wiley recalled. “I realized I could come back to a school where I was a student … and be able to build something. I wanted to help kids, but also wanted to watch the school grow and watch the athletic department grow.”

One of the biggest differences between a 4A school like Redmond High and a smaller school like Overlake is that approximately 75 to 80 percent of the student body participates in sports, which requires an incredible number of coaches for all of the school’s grade levels.

“I recruit, hire, and manage a coaching staff of 80,” Wiley noted. “We have a lot of coaches that have been here a long time and enjoyed a lot of success, and they’ve stayed. I have a staff of full-time athletic trainers and an assistant AD (Steve Meredith), so my role is basically to make sure the trains arrive on time and that kids are getting more out of sports.”

For an academically focused school like Overlake, the Owls have an extremely strong athletic program, turning out juggernaut teams annually in soccer, tennis, and lacrosse — which Wiley attributes to hiring experienced coaches who are great role models.

“It’s a trite expression, but it’s true,” he said. “We retain our kids, and we offer that kind of big-stage experience, whether it’s playing state tournament championship games, or watching great teams come together.”

Most importantly, being that a vast majority of the Owl student-athletes don’t have aspirations to play professionally or will even continue playing sports in their post-secondary careers, Wiley says it’s vital that his kids get the most possible out of sports to help them acheive their goals in life.

“We have very competitive varsities, but we also have programs where we just have kids that want to play, so we’ll make a team for them,” Wiley explained. “The relations with the coaches, and with kids, and watching those kids grow up through sports … they get so much out of athletics.”

CHAD POHLMAN – BEAR CREEK

The Bear Creek School’s Chad Pohlman, who majored in history from Oregon’s George Fox University, thought he’d be teaching for a good portion of his career.

Maybe it was just fate, but that stint didn’t last long.

After only four years in the classroom, Pohlman, who has coached boys’ soccer for all nine years he has been at the school, took over the Grizzlies’ AD position in 2007.

Although he is at a small school, his role is equally as large and diverse, as Bear Creek serves kids from sixth through 12th grade.

“Overseeing the coaches, coaching development, coaching training, overseeing transportation, officials, student participation, checking in and scheduling with the other schools, making sure it’s a great athletic experience for all the kids that are involved,” described Pohlman when asked about his job description. “To make it a great experience, it takes a lot of organization and hard work.”

The Bear Creek School also prides itself on hiring top-tier coaches, and like Overlake, has 75 percent of its student body participating in athletics every year. Pohlman’s situation, however, is unique in that his programs also have implemented a no-cut policy, meaning every athlete who tries out gets to play.

“In the winter, we’ll have nine basketball teams all playing at the same time, four in the middle school and five in the high school,” he noted. “That’s challenging… but we all work hard and at the end of the day, it makes my job easy knowing there’s a lot of support here.”

A support group that Pohlman lauded as second-to-none, one that packs the bleachers to the rafters at nearly every Grizzlies’ home basketball game, and sit out in a downpour to watch Pohlman’s own boys’ soccer team make a postseason run.

“The athletic community here is unbelievable,” he said. “We’re a Christian college prep school, in a sense, but at the same time we understand we can be great at athletics and great at academics, and the two can go together to complete that whole person that we are trying to develop.”