The Sporting Life: Ugly Shoes, Punting Decisions, Buckeye Band - Leadership Lite - school superintendents - Brief Article

School Administrator, Jan, 2002

An Easy Sacrifice

There's no escaping stress when you're a superintendent-- even on the golf course.

A foursome playing in an AASA-sponsored golf tournament in Laguna Beach, Calif., last summer figured their biggest natural obstacle would be staying clear of ticks as they searched the tall rough for an occasional mis-hit shot. Then they came across the sign in the bushes urging caution as a "rattlesnake nesting area."

The sacrifice of a few new balls didn't seem like such a big deal after that.

Footwear Follies

Thinking that he had the coolest new running shoes in central Michigan, Jon Tomlanovich, superintendent of the Eaton Intermediate School District, showed up several years ago for the annual Fun Run at the summer conference of his state's intermediate-agency superintendents. The "run" is actually a 5-kilometer run or 1-mile walk.

The sponsor took one look at Tomlanovich's shoes and declared them "the ugliest I have ever seen." So what about them was so ugly? "They were green and black--overt, I guess you could say," says Tomlanovich.

The shoes were put to good use, eventually wearing out only to be reincarnated in the form of a framed photo depicting them alongside the Fun Run trophy. Awarded for the first time last summer, the Ugly Shoe Award winner was Tom Lanway, superintendent of the Alpena-Montmorency-Alcona Intermediate School District. His dubious distinction? He competed in the Fun Run wearing his street shoes.

In Step With the Tunes

Timm Mackley bleeds scarlet and gray, the colors of his beloved alma mater Ohio State University. So his appointment last summer to the superintendency of the Groveport Madison School District, located just outside Columbus, was appropriate and welcome.

Mackley plays trombone with the Buckeyes' alumni marching band and has done so with some regularity since his graduation in 1973. He performed the famous Ohio script at halftime of Ohio State's season-opening football game--more than a month before he even set foot in his new office at Groveport Madison.

Next fall Mackley will have an additional incentive to march with fellow alumni. His son, a member of the Buckeye marching band, graduates this spring.

Does He Punt on Decisions?

Forgive David McGehee, the new superintendent of the Raymore-Peculiar School District in Raymore, Mo., if his thoughts return to the gridiron this time of year.

Long before he harbored any notions of a career in the upper reaches of school administration, McGehee was a pretty fair football player, twice being invited to try out as a punter with the National Football League's Dallas Cowboys.

McGehee didn't survive training camp personnel cuts either time, which finally launched his start in education, another field that often demands split-second judgments and quick escapes from tacklers.

Marathon Men

Though they work as district superintendents less than three hours apart in upstate New York, avid marathon runners John Gratto and Oliver Blaise never have faced off in the same competition.

Blaise, who is 55, has run 29 marathons in 20 states, including the New York City marathon. Gratto, 45, took up road running just last year and has finished four marathons, including one in Rome.

While acknowledging his colleague has the edge in experience, Gratto figures the two would probably finish a race remarkably close to each other were they to go head to head.

"That's because running 26 miles is hard work and we would probably run with each other for the companionship," Gratto says.

Nothing in the Tank

You won't find the job of bus mechanic in Bill Schnoor's official job description, but the superintendent of the Valley Public Schools near Omaha, Neb., found himself ready to apply those skills his first day on the job.

When he received word that the school van carrying the girls' golf team to an out-of-town match had broken down on the highway, Schnoor raced to the scene with a maintenance person.

Once there, he discovered the van had a more basic problem. "Pretty mortifying for the golf coach," reports Schnoor. "His first day working for me and his van runs out of gas."