The athletic office has a new look this year, and it’s affecting all of SHS athletics. With a new athletic director and an unfilled position of Assistant Athletic Director, this year brings changes and new goals for the athletic department.

Nick Stevens, the previous Assistant Athletic Director, is now the Athletic Director. This left an open spot for the Assistant Athletic Director position, which was filled by Nolan Dowling. But, Dowling stepped down recently, and his position remains vacant.

As the new Athletic Director, Stevens has some new focuses and goals that he is looking forward to implementing into SHS athletics, the main one being to continue to get students excited about athletics and raise school spirit.

“I want to make sure that we are still promoting our sports to make sure that … you as the students know when the events are and making sure that we’re getting you guys out to the events,” Stevens said.

Stevens decided to keep the free admission rule at any home games, which means as long as students have their student ID, they can get in for free.

However, one new focus that Stevens has is the digital side of promoting sports. 

Stevens says that coming into the position, he wanted to use social media to highlight some of our athletes here at SHS. One way to help him do this was to bring back Athlete of the Week.

Athlete of the Week is an award given out to SHS athletes to highlight their hard work and skill in games. 

Coaches will nominate athletes based on their athletic performance and skill. Then, an article will be posted on SouthportCardinals.com, where fans, players or people in the community can vote on the winner.

Although becoming the Athletic Director came with new responsibilities, Stevens’ transition to taking over was not as difficult as it could have been according to Stevens.

Stevens says this was because of his existing knowledge of coaches in the school. There was no need to go out, meet and begin to build relationships with coaches, because he had already done that.

Nicky Givens, the Athletic Office Manager, says working with Stevens now is smooth and easy since she has worked with him for the past three years.

“I am very fortunate because it was Mr. Stevens,” Givens said. “It was an easy transition.”