Strong Communication Tools for Athletic Directors (ADs): Planning it Right

Introduction: Athletic Directors Do it All

Being an athletic director is a multi-disciplinary profession that requires robust time management and coordination skills. Understanding the modern athletic director: Investigating the roles and preparedness of New Jersey high school ADs published in the International Journal of Physical Education, Sports and Health in 2024 takes a look at the historical requirements for Athletic Directors, from past to the current time. 

The study examines the secret sauce of what makes a great athletic director: Does the director need to have a coaching background? Should the director have legal expertise? What about medical knowledge? Is a master’s degree required? And what about communication skills out of the field; are they even included in the job requirements?

The athletic directors participating in the study expressed that athletic coaching background is highly important to be successful on the job. However, the expressed requirements by ADs expanded beyond the authors’ perception for requirements. For instance, one athletic director expressed “the importance of public relations and customer service skills in an athletic director’s role, citing instances of dealing with upset parents or presenting budget proposals to the board of education.”

The Overlooked Skill: Communication Beyond the Field

While communication, public relations and customer service skills may be expected from athletic directors, these skills are not typically mentioned in formal job descriptions. Yet, in practice, athletic directors find themselves having to self-organize scheduling and communication practices with parents, often without much help from their school who hired them.

Let’s review some common communication challenges – and opportunities – athletic directors may face, and look into how a unified communication solution, such as School Signals, provides a supportive environment to include athletic programs as part of the school’s official communication plan and practices. 

The recommendations are general in nature provided in good communication principles, and to note: no recommendation should be considered as legal advice.

The Communication Challenges and Opportunities Facing Athletic Directors

Consider it an institutional challenge – and opportunity –  for athletic directors, school administrators, communication directors and marketing to work together to communicate, facilitate, market and inform.  The teams can utilize digital tools such as School Signals to communicate internally and hold meetings where they may work up a communication plan for the athletics program. 

How your communications team can self-organize planning work in School Signals: 

• Create an internal group for your communications team to discuss and form the communication plan
• Create an internal communication plan calendar
• Upload link for the group to the living communications document for edits
• Host meeting minutes in the Documents
• Private message staff in the network
• Schedule posts to go out for agreed dates and times 
• Create online forms for parent feedback

Your team could consider using the Lasswell’s 5W Communication Model “Who Says What In Which Channel to Whom with What Effect?” for the communication plan.

The model is based on five W-questions, and the communication strategy is planned by answering to each question: 

1. Who → Who is responsible for sending the message?
2. Says What → What is being communicated?
3. In Which Channel → What medium or channel is the message sent (e.g., app, email, meeting)?
4. To Whom → Who is the intended recipient or audience?
5. With What Effect → What is the desired result or impact of the communication?
   Yes, the model is old, but is still regarded as an effective tool for modeling and systemizing communication.

Before writing down the plan, I’d suggest that the team reflects some purpose-driven questions such as:

• What are we communicating about our athletic programs?
  Are we informing, promoting school spirit, recruiting participants, or coordinating logistics?
• Who owns the messaging and updates?
  Define communication responsibilities between coaches, the athletic director, or the communications office. 
• What is our communication flow?
  Define which messages come first: game schedules, sign-up deadlines, safety policies, or event highlights.
• When should information flow between departments?
  Establish timing between athletics, administration, and marketing. For example, define when game changes must be shared with the front office or the communication team.
• Where should official information live?
  Identify the central hub for information such as School Signals, athletics web page/site, so families always know where to find the latest updates. Communicate where information lives to the community.
• What is the tone of voice we want to strike? (see more below.)

Practical Planning to Deliver Communication 

Next, your team may consider reviewing practical planning questions such as:

• Who will respond to questions from families using agreed channels?
• What details must be included in each announcement using agreed channels?
• When will parents receive sign-up reminders and updates?
• Where will families complete registrations or payments?
• Are required safety protocols in place and how will they be communicated?
• How do we handle legal forms and waivers?

Identifying and Establishing Communication Style

How do we celebrate wins and build momentums?

A part of the communication plan is to discuss and establish how athletic programs are communicated to the community, and student-athletes parents. 

• What is the tone of voice the school wants to strike?
• How quickly does the school expect to respond to parents?
• How is criticism handled?
• How does the school communicate proactively with parents before issues arise?
• How do we celebrate wins and build momentums?

Forming a Communication Plan

Great! You have had one or two productive meetings or online discussions, and you are ready to write down the plan with your team. While meeting memos and list formats can work, people rarely return to them. I’d suggest that the communications team uses project management online tools if they are already in place, or creates a simple excel sheet to track the communication. 

An example communication plan may be added for a spreadsheet as visualized in the example:

Please note:

• To make the plan easier to craft, I’ve adjusted the plan to: 5W+1 Communication Plan (When – What – By Whom – Channel – To Whom – What Effect).
• The model does not include the practical and important “When” question. I’ve added “When” to the plan. You can use School Signals to schedule messages to time when they go out.
• The Lasswell’s Communication model is linear, and does not take instant feedback into account, so your team may want to adjust or even course-correct the plan accordingly as soon as feedback from the school community becomes available. 
  
  
  

Integrating a Feedback Loop with School Signals

Lasswell’s Communication Model is useful for outlining roles and responsibilities. However, modern online tools allow establishing a dialogue and interaction between school and home that makes a difference. Once a message is sent, feedback from families and staff helps refine your future communication and build trust.

In School Signals, the athletics communication team can maintain and encourage the feedback loop:

• Create surveys that can be filled anonymously
• Enable parent comments on posts
• Communicate with parents through private messages
• Post updates in News & Updates when plans change
  Review engagement metrics such as message views and form submissions
• Collect staff input or share quick polls inside internal groups

With the feedback loop, your team ensures that communication stays active, responsive, and aligned with your school community’s real needs. For instance, if the feedback shows that last-minute schedule changes are still too hard to note, you may consider always notifying parents by text message.

Strength in Unified Communication

While marketing directors need to amplify the messaging across school platforms – private communication networks, district and school websites, and social media -, athletic directors and instructors on the other hand focus on internal community communication to provide updates on schedule changes. I’ve demonstrated above that a communication plan and communication work flow between different departments makes sense; and can be quite enjoyable too when applying easy but powerful theories and practices.

School Signals solves communication issues by providing a platform for internal staff-only dialogue and planning; and robust tools for school-home communication on athletics programs, classrooms, and school-wide announcements.

Building a Connected Community

The school community is best served with a unified communication approach where multiple logins are minimized. the School Signals Clubs & Programs feature brings coaches, administrators, and parents together in one place. Parents can sign up their students on the platform they are already using. When a student is added by a coach to the program, their parents are auto-connected, saving directors time and simplifying family communication. Posting an update delivers the same message to everyone at once via app, email, or text, and administrators can easily participate to keep everyone informed. Online forms are integrated into the process.

Final Thoughts

We’ve seen many apps that are marketed for athletic directors and coaches, marketed as different from what a classroom app might look and function like. That makes sense. Athletic departments and after-school activities in general have different data points that what a school communication app might have. But – to come to think of it – the parents are the same, the school administrators are the same. Why do teachers and staff use one platform to plan and prepare; why do parents need to use another app to communicate; and why do athletic directors, coaches and instructors need to be siloed into a third platform?

School Signals simplifies and unifies athletics program communication for athletic directors while taking communication planning, execution and delivery seriously. 

References

Lindsay, A., Hack, D., & Bae, J. (2024). Understanding the modern athletic director: Investigating the roles and preparedness of New Jersey high school ADs. International Journal of Physical Education, Sports and Health, 11(2), 11–18. https://www.kheljournal.com/archives/2024/vol11issue2/PartA/11-1-73-499.pdf

Zhang, L. (2015). Analysis of new media communication based on Lasswell’s “5W” model. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 5(3), 245–250. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281571850_Analysis_of_New_Media_Communication_Based_on_Lasswell’s_5W_Model