With the retirement of our beloved Whitmore, a man who will haunt the halls as a legacy in the halls of Bedford High, a new athletic administrator must step up to fill the golden shoes. Fortunately, Corey Parker, previously administrator of Oyster River High School in Durham for six consecutive years and sports fan, has taken up the challenging responsibility. He explains this extensive role of athletic administrator at Bedford:
“An athletic administrator oversees everything under athletics, So from all the scheduling that we do to coaches evaluations and hiring of coaches to budget preparations, all our officials assigned to our events, all our transportation, and the budgets that are built in for our athletics as well: purchasing of all our equipment and purchasing our uniforms. I work directly with the athletic booster club as well with their coaches to help be the conduit between the two. When there are needs within athletics that we can’t budget for, we work with the booster club to get help purchasing things for us.”
Parker, a veteran of the job, knows it inside and out. He started working in a high school in Cincinnati, Ohio his sophomore year of college. Since 2002, he has been in athletic administration. And again, most recently before coming into Bedford, he was the athletic director of Oyster River High School in Durham, New Hampshire for six years.
Mr. Parker explains his favorite lovable pieces of being an athletic administrator: “My favorite aspects of the job is playing a role in watching students matriculate through high school and using athletics not only as a way to represent our community but grow and learn lifelong lessons through athletics. Being the sports fan that I am, I think athletics is certainly something that kids learn a lot of valuable lessons in. And so being able to be a part of that process is what makes the job really enjoyable.”
In contrast, here he explains the most challenging part of his occupation and being at a new school: “Currently, the hardest part of my job is getting to know everyone here. Mainly, getting and building those relationships with our current coaches and really getting a better understanding of all our programs and how they run, essentially. Right now it’s a lot of education for me from our coaches and also my philosophy to our coaches as to the expectations for a season.”
We believe that it takes some time to break in the ole chair Mr. Whitmore sat in, but Mr. Parker is doing a wonderful job, although it might be a little soon to say. We just need time to get to know Mr. Parker and his hopes of “bolstering our student athlete’s awareness of all our programs to understand that we’re here to support all other teams we have.”
Corey Parker has thoroughly enjoyed Bedford since he arrived. He grew up here in town, explaining that “Bedford has a special place in my heart.”
Parker will bring a new and fresh aspect to the field of athletics. He shares his excitement, “It’s exciting to not only have a high school here now but also be a part of it. I think that this a healthy culture for kids to thrive and be successful. And that’s something that kids certainly embrace. I want to help strengthen that and bridge a stronger connection between all our athletic teams together, so everyone is supporting each other in one common mission in this school.”
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