Exclusive interview with APA Carlson
Q&A session with new athletic director
Q: What job did you have before coming here to South?
A: I was the Athletic Director at St. Viator’s in Arlington Heights for six years
Q: What college did you attend, and what degree(s) did you receive there?
A: My undergrad was from Dominican University in River Forest, and I was a social science major. My master’s is from Concordia University of Chicago, and that is in school leadership.
Q: What is your role here at South?
A: I’m Assistant Principal for Athletics so my responsibilities deal with the 24 athletic programs that the high school has, making sure that they’re up and running smoothly, and everyone’s where they need to be.
Q: What are some of your goals for being Assistant Principal of Athletics here?
A: First and foremost, we have a theme, and this year’s theme is “One Team, One South” which is our motto in athletics. We build a collaboration with our programs, get them to support each other, have our coaches work together for the betterment of the student athletes and really work on behalf of Glenbard South as an institution. Number two, in terms of goals, is just to try and continue to improve the programs. As a new faculty member here, I’m trying to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of our programs and talk to our coaches and work with them to continue the strong traditions South has had over the years.
Q: What inspired you to go into education?
A: Right after I graduated high school, I’d been coaching youth sports, and even during high school I enjoyed working in a school setting, and as I went more and more into college, I realized that it was more apparent where my future was taking me. I really enjoyed working with young people. I’d been a basketball coach before, and it was important to me, and I believe that with every position you have, you have to love it first, it has to be a passion for you. You have to be able to come to work everyday because you love what you do.
Q: With the theme of “One Team, One South,” how do you feel you can improve Glenbard South?
A: If you look over the course of the past few years, you’ll see that we’ve had a lot of success, athletically, at South, and we want to keep that going. I know we’ve been successful at the conference level and some of our teams have had success at the state level. We would like to consistently have programs that have the opportunity to succeed across all levels. We want our coaches to understand the importance of the task of working with young people in the athletic setting. We want to stress treating each student athlete with respect and creating an environment where positive interactions is the norm. Our ultimate goal is to work to give the student athletes here at South the best possible athletic experience we possibly can.
Senior Jenny Yun is one of the two editors for Photography section of The Independent. This is her third year on the newspaper staff. When she is not...