Brent Kawaguchi, Athletic Director at Skyline High School, has announced that he will be retiring at the end of the school year.

After six years of working at the school, Kawaguchi informed Skyline staff through an email that he would be retiring and gave some insight on his decision. 

Kawaguchi’s first Athletic Director job was at Mount Rainier High School in Des Moines. He then took a couple years off to be a stay at home dad before becoming the Athletic Director at Eastlake High School for 10 years. After Eastlake, he worked at Inglewood Middle School as a Physical Education teacher for four years. Finally, he landed at Skyline where he will be ending his career. 

As Athletic Director, Kawaguchi does a lot of hard work that goes unseen: from checking grades and eligibility of the student athletes participating in school sports, to scheduling and planning for all of the teams, sometimes while the season is happening. There is a lot of work to be done, but Kawaguchi does not act alone.

“Being an athletic director is a team job, it’s not just me overseeing athletics,” Kawaguchi said. “We have secretaries doing a lot of work behind the scenes, as well as administrators.”

Having others helping out is essential as an AD’s workload almost never ends.

“Right now we’re in the middle of the postseason, our baseball team is in the playoffs, our fastpitch team is in the playoffs and our soccer team is still in the playoffs, so we’re still busy getting buses and transportation and making sure our rosters are up to date,” Kawaguchi said.

In addition to the administrative work, another important aspect of being an athletic director is attending the games and events for all of the teams. 

“The best part [of the job] is watching our student athletes perform on game days,” Kawaguchi said.

Kawaguchi hopes that during his time as AD, high expectations have been set for the student athletes, coaches, and teams. He gives a lot of credit to the student athletes for helping exceed those standards.

“We want to be the best in every sport and I think we do that and I think it’s a tribute to our student athletes,” Kawaguchi said.

Although expectations for athletics are very important, Kawaguchi knows that expectations in the classroom are even more important.

“I think it’s important that our student athletes understand the importance of their education, and when they go out there in the real world they say, ‘Hey, Skyline was a good place to be and I learned a lot’,” Kawaguchi said.

According to Kawaguchi, the student athletes and coaches have made his experience at Skyline very enjoyable.

“It’s a great school to end my career at,” Kawaguchi said.

With Kawaguchi retiring, a new person will be taking over next year. As for any position being filled, there will be challenges along the way. However, Kawaguchi offers a piece of advice to the next AD.

“Lean on other people at the school and talk to the AD’s in the league. We have AD’s in the league that care and are caring about athletics and their student athletes and I think it’s a great place to be,” Kawaguchi said. “I think every one of them will help the new person who will be here.”

Although there will be things he will miss, Kawaguchi is ready to close this chapter.

“I think there will be times next year where I wonder what’s going on at Skyline, but it’s time for somebody else to do this job.”