Coaches React to Interim Athletic Director
Over the summer, Coach David Hudson was named the Exeter Athletic Department’s interim Athletic Director, taking over N. Shane LaPointe’s role after his twelve-year hiatus as a coach. Even though Hudson is named Director for this school year only, he is looking forward to taking on the position again.
During his years in high school, Hudson played football, baseball and wrestled. Hudson went on to play football and wrestled in college at St. Lawrence University. For three years, Hudson was a head wrestling coach, assistant football coach and member of the sport and leisure studies department at St. Lawrence University. Hudson also worked as the Athletic Director at Governor’s Academy and was the director of afternoon programs. Before becoming Exeter’s interim Athletic Director, he worked here as a faculty member and in the physical education department. He became the chair of the PE department in 1999. Prior to the 2018-19 school year, he was also an assistant coach of our varsity football team, head varsity wrestling coach, and a co-head for the boys’ JV lacrosse team.
Given that Coach Hudson will only be the Athletic Director for one year, he explained that his main focus will be to tend to the day-to-day details of our athletic program. He said, “[I will] oversee the structures currently in place to best provide a positive experience for our coaches and athletes.”
Members of the coaching staff have commended Coach Hudson for his communication among sports programs. Girls’ varsity soccer coach Alexa Caldwell said, “[He] has done a really awesome job at talking to coaches about decisions that are being made in terms of weather or stuff way before practice time so we have time to prepare.”
Coach Hudson has also made an effort to be present at various games and practices of Exeter’s high-achieving sports teams, which he was unable to do previously while coaching three sports throughout the year. This effort is appreciated by the many varsity and JV athletes this fall term, and gives the athletes motivation to continue to work hard and uphold the name of Exeter’s Athletic Department.
Girls’ varsity lacrosse head coach Christina Breen praised Exeter’s athletes for their determination and drive. “You don’t have to ask kids twice to work hard and give everything they can to the group and to try to succeed,” she said.
Although there have already been improvements in Exeter’s athletic department in the first few weeks of the school year, there are still many improvements that need to be carried out. Balancing work and sports at Exeter is difficult, and athletes will find any time they can to finish homework. “Athletes should be able to use the room next to the wrestling room to do our homework. I don’t think it needs to be locked all the time.” Jane Collins, senior and co-captain of girls’ varsity field hockey, said.
In addition to work and the way that Exeter’s schedule is structured, student athletes generally experience fatigue, as there is only a twenty-minute block of time for the Varsity and JV athletes to make it to the fields or court from their classes. “It’s really inconvenient that we have only twenty minutes to get to practice,” lower and varsity volleyball athlete Brody Faliero said.
In addition to a rushed schedule, sports programs at Exeter have two teams per sports, at most. There is no third team for students who did not make the cut for JV or varsity. Freshmen cannot play club sports because they are specialized for lowers and upperclassmen, and “if kids want to play a sport at Exeter and there is more than a couple, we should be able to provide them that sport,” Caldwell said. With third teams, younger athletes would be able to develop their skills for any sport without the pressures of being on a JV or Varsity team. In later years, they could proceed to join a competing team, which would add depth to all sports in our athletic department.
Exeter’s philosophy about athletics is very confusing; as all coaches push the athletic teams to do well, the department does not provide a place for younger students to learn how to play at a basic level on a team. “Do we want to be a school that thinks of athletics in the same way we think about academics in that we are trying to reach for excellence, or do we just want to be a school that offers athletics and it’s really just exercise and it doesn’t matter if we’re good or not?” Breen asked.
Many of our varsity teams would like to have the funding for attending higher level competitions in the greater New England area, with upper Andrew Benson explaining that the boys’ varsity swim team “would really like to make it to ‘Easterns’ for swimming.” Over the years, teams’ records have been unpredictable and very inconsistent between sports in terms of the success of each seasonal team. Breen expressed her belief regarding the disparities, “Until we decide as an entire school that we are going to value athletics and think of it as another classroom, I think we are going to remain very confused and inconsistent.”