Coach Duncan has been the athletic director at Riverside for 4 years.
“Riverside’s a school that everyone can fit in,” said Duncan, talking about diversity, his favorite aspect of the school. He has many ideas and goals for Riverside in an effort to make it a more collective school.
As an athletic director, Duncan values the importance of sports. To him, sports are so essential in high school because they drive so much of today’s culture. There is a huge increase in academic achievement and graduation rates in athletes, especially males.
Since sports are extremely important to Duncan, he has put a lot of energy and time into fundraising because he doesn’t feel that the Riverside Athletic Program is adequately funded. Riverside isn’t an old school, therefore, it doesn’t have a strong alumni group compared to other high schools in the area. His goal was to raise $10,000 and he reached that, but it is still not enough to support the many athletic teams at Riverside. There are a lot of facility needs including goals, helmets, bats, and equipment that almost every team needs.
Another one of Duncan’s focuses is pushing student participation at home games. He has already created student athlete passes, but Duncan said, “they haven’t worked in the way I’ve envisioned.”
He has been trying to raise school participation, but hasn’t felt a wealth of support. Student participation at sports events is so important to Coach Duncan because he strongly believes it will make a more cohesive school.
A final focus of Coach Duncan’s is to help female athletes succeed.
“My goal is just to promote female sports. I want our female sports to be glorified,” said Duncan.
There are so many different opportunities at Riverside and he wants every student to benefit from them, regardless of gender. Duncan is aiming for students to experience a sense of pride in the school.
