Staff Writer

 Biddeford High School Athletic Director Dennis Walton published an article this spring in the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association magazine about the school’s Iron Tiger Program. Walton, who recently was honored by the Southern Maine Athletic Association, sat down last week to talk about his article, “Battling the Decline of the Three-Sport Athlete.”

 After teaching social studies, why did you decide to become an athletic administrator?

I’ve always been interested in administration. I’ve always had a passion for athletics. It seemed to be a good fit. While I was at Biddeford Middle School and at St. James School prior to coming to BHS, I did some middle school athletic administration. It was at that time I started taking some courses for a master’s degree, starting out with the (University of Southern Maine) athletic administration program. From there, I went on to get my master’s with the direction at some point I’d like to do high school athletic administration.

Why were you recently recognized by the Southern Maine Athletic Association?

It was the SMAA’s special achievement award. It’s to recognize an individual from the league for their contributions to their school and to the league. I was a little surprised. I’ve only been doing this for five years. I was a little surprised especially since it’s a strong league with very good athletic administrators. To be honest, I’m honored I was selected, but at the same time I know a number of people in that room were just as worthy of receiving it.

How closely do you work with other athletic administrators?

Very closely. We meet once a month at league meetings, but communicate on a daily basis. It’s constant communication between athletic administrators and their administrative assistants. You get to know people very well very quickly. That’s what the job is. Whether it’s scheduling, whether it’s conflicts, whether it’s each of us as a liaison to a sport putting out schedules.

What is the article about that you recently had published?

From the league level, we’re always being encouraged to write articles for the state magazine. They’re always looking for ideas that work. It’s almost like a professional development type of publication. I’ve got a real interest in encouraging athletes to be multi-sport athletes.

I think in the last couple of decades we’ve seen athletes start to specialize more and more, especially with AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) and recreation programs and travel teams. Those are not bad things, those are good things, but I think what’s happened is kids have picked the sport they think they’re best at. Rather than being role players on other teams, they’ve started to just play basketball year-round or swim year-round. I think that there’s a lot of great information out there about the benefits of being a three-sport athlete, from avoiding repetitive use injuries to contributing to your school’s athletic programs.

Two years ago we started the Iron Tiger Award. What we do is we recognize at our spring sports ceremony every student in the school who participated in a fall, winter and spring sport. We call up every kid, whether they’re freshmen, sophomores, juniors or seniors. It’s a way of encouraging and recognizing kids for something fewer and fewer kids are doing.

The first year we did it, we had 91 kids participate out of 900 or so students. The second year that number when up to 108. Is it the award? We don’t know that yet, nor is it that important because whether the numbers continue to grow or not, I still think it’s worthy and a good thing to recognize kids for doing.

My idea following the 2011-12 season will be to try to come up with some kind of Golden Tiger for kids who did this for four years. I think if you are a three-sport athlete for four years that is quite an accomplishment.

What has been the response from students and coaches to the Iron Tiger Award?

It’s been very positive. As a matter of fact, I think the biggest impact it’s had is not so much on kids who play one sport deciding to play three. I think the biggest jump we’ve seen and will continue to see is kids who are already participating in two sports who say, “Hey, all I have to do is play one more season and I become an Iron Tiger.”

It’s exciting because the kids know what the Iron Tiger is. I think the community is starting to understand what the Iron Tiger Award is. I do hear kids, and I do hear from teachers, who say “so-and-so was talking in my class and they’re going to do track this spring because they want to be a three-sport athlete.” It’s been very positive. We’ve had T-shirts made up with Iron Tiger logos. It’s a win-win.

We’re very grateful to the Biddeford Athletic Association who sponsors it and finds it worthy enough to foot the bill every spring and purchase every one of those awards.

Have you had administrators from other schools ask about the program?

At the local level, there have been some schools that have asked me questions about it. I don’t know of any other schools around here that are doing something similar. After the NIAAA article comes out, I’d be excited to get phone calls from people who might be interested in trying to do something like this at their school. It’s exciting to share ideas, not only at the local and state level, but the national level.