.jpg)
After spending 22 years as the Athletic Director at Johnston High School, Gary Ross became an Associate Director at the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union.
Gary’s presentation included explaining the structure of Iowa’s high school organizations as well as the duties and challenges of his job.
Gary’s presentation included explaining the structure of Iowa’s high school organizations as well as the duties and challenges of his job.
The Iowa Girls Athletic Union is located at 5000 Westown Parkway in West Des Moines. The organization for high school speech competition also has offices at that location. The Iowa boys Athletic Association as well as the organization for music is housed in Boone. With these four organizations, Iowa is the only state that has more than one organization for student activities.
In addition to reporting to a board of directors, the Union has a new group to help them direct the affairs of the Union. The new group is a Student Advisory Committee. This committee is new in 2018 and includes 11 female students from across the state.
There are over 360 schools in Iowa. Iowa girls have 10 different sanctioned high school sports to choose from. Iowa’s state track meet is the largest attended high school state track meet in the country.
Gary said the biggest challenges are managing the demand sports places on students, the lack of coaches and officials and how to help schools that are struggling with finance and attendance numbers.
To sum it up, Gary said the union’s job is “to do what they can to make the girls experience the best it can be.”