Athol High School’s new athletic director is quite familiar with the school’s various programs.
Not only has Dan Bevis served as a head coach of several teams at the school over the past decade, he was also a student-athlete there himself before graduating in 2000.
Bevis was recently named athletic director at Athol, stepping in for former AD Dave King, who is now the vice principal at the school. King had been serving in both roles for the past four years.
During King’s time serving as AD and vice principal, Bevis was hired as assistant athletic director, while also teaching physical education at the school. He said he is excited to take over and try to continue to steer the program in the same direction it has enjoyed with King at the helm.
“I’m excited. It’s a new challenge to take on. I want to try to continue the success that Dave was able to bring to the athletic program,” Bevis said.
Part of the success that came during King’s time as AD coincided with Bevis’ time as girls’ basketball coach at the school. Bevis took over as coach of the girls’ team in 2009-10 and spent seven years with the team. During that tenure, Bevis won six league titles and qualified for the postseason every season. Twice, he helped guide his team to the WMass semifinals at Curry Hicks Cage.
While serving as assistant AD, Bevis was involved in putting together schedules for all the teams at the school as well as handling officials. He said he will now have to assume the rest of the duties.
“I did a good portion of the job, but I will be learning the parts of the job that I didn’t really necessarily do,” he said. “I think that’s where the challenge lies, but I have a great mentor (King) in the building, and I have several ADs in the PVIAC who have reached out and offered any help they can. We are fortunate that in western Mass., we have a group of ADs who are willing to help out younger guys and girls who are coming into the profession.”
Bevis said that getting as many kids involved in athletics as he can is an important aspect of his job.
“We want our students involved and to try to continue to to work on relationships with community and youth sports,” he said. “We try to make it an enjoyable experience for everyone and hopefully our kids will see success.”
Bevis took over as boys’ basketball coach at Athol in 2016 and will continue to serve as coach of that team.