Brad McCammon’s decision to resign as longtime athletic director at Medora High School in the middle of the school year had to do with family matters.
His wife, Luanne, retired as a teacher at Medora at the end of last school year, and he said he wants to be able to spend more time with her.
Also, his daughter, Kelsey Hall, is expecting a child in January.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
“I know when my grandchild comes in January, I want to be able to spend time with him,” McCammon said. “It’s not that I hated the job. It’s that I want to spend more time with my family.”
In addition to his duties as athletic director, McCammon handles the scheduling and supervising home games of Medora junior high basketball.
He admitted spending four nights a week at school for many weeks during the winter over 30 years caused him to get somewhat burned out with the job.
McCammon will continue to teach and coach the varsity girls basketball team, which begins its 2020-21 season Saturday.
“A lot of days, I’ll have practice, grab a bite and have to get back here and set up for a game,” he said of his longtime schedule. “That makes it hard.”
McCammon started at Medora in 1985, making this his 36th year at the school, and the span of his work as athletic director covers about 30 of those years.
He said one thing he has enjoyed is sharing time talking with other athletic directors and officials over the years.
“I’ve enjoyed the camaraderie with other athletic directors, but I always enjoy knowing a lot of the officials and find it interesting what these officials are in (occupation) when they come in and officiate,” he said. “It is enjoyable to know their backgrounds.”
McCammon said he thought about retiring as AD in the summer but decided to stay on through the fall volleyball season. He said he talked to Superintendent Roger Bane and decided the right time to step down was at the end of September.
Kara Hunt has replaced McCammon as athletic director at the school.
“I had a lot of athletic directors reach out to me, and that is nice,” McCammon said of when word spread he was stepping down. “Their first concern was about my health, but that wasn’t it at all. I did a lot of soul searching, and this allows me to focus on the classroom and girls basketball.”
McCammon was instrumental in helping form the small-schools Southern Roads Conference, beginning with the 2018-19 school year.
A news release from the conference announced, “Starting with the 2018-19 school year, Medora will be a member of the Southern Roads Conference. The conference includes the following schools: Cannelton High School, Christian Academy of Madison, Columbus Christian, Dugger Union High School, Evansville Christian School and Medora High School.
“The sports include boys and girls basketball, girls volleyball and boys and girls cross-country. The conference crowns both a tournament and a regular-season champion in volleyball and boys and girls basketball.”
The early season girls basketball tournament kicks off the season Saturday.
“Some of the athletic directors in the conference have reached out to me,” McCammon said. “Steve Hall (AD at Union Dugger) and I have talked extensively. He said he is glad that we were one of the first schools to pick them up when they became a charter school.”
McCammon said three schools have made applications to join the conference, but they didn’t have all of the sports.
“One of them didn’t have girls basketball, and a couple of the others were extremely north and would be hard for Evansville to make that trip,” he said.