With 25 years of experience as an athletic director, St. Charles East’s new athletic director Darren Howard brings a wealth of knowledge and leadership to our school. He has a master’s degree from National Louis University in education and is a Certified Master Athletic Director. Some of his achievements as an athletic director include being the president of the Illinois Athletic Directors Association for three years and being named the 2023 National Athletic Director of the Year.
Howard’s favorite part of being an athletic director is “watching coaches and kids develop and have success.” He says that he enjoys mentoring younger athletic directors and coaches as well as having the opportunity to work with the kids.
Having more opportunities to mentor was one of the reasons Howard came to St. Charles East High School. “I wanted to be somewhere where it was a bit more forward-thinking and a little more aggressive in the athletic world,” he said. “So, I had the opportunity for St. Charles East, an opportunity for Naperville and an opportunity to stay at Oswego. After going through the process here, meeting the coaches and taking the tours, I chose St. Charles East.”
He plans to improve sports at East by challenging the athletes as well as the coaches. He stated, “There’s some status quo happening where people are just happy where they’re at, and I think we need to challenge ourselves a little bit more.” He mentioned that he’s already working with coaches to be able to give athletes better opportunities, saying, “We need to challenge the students to work a little harder, set their goals a little harder and hold themselves more accountable.”
Howard is improving athletics at East, and his plan is in motion to improve the coaching staff. “Coaches are going to mentor each other, we are having mentoring groups now [and] we are going to do more with professional development,” he said. “For example, in January, we have a speaker coming in from the University of Miami Ohio to talk about mental health and sports psychology both for coaches and students.”
Howard plans to improve the fan experience in the future as well. “We are working on trying to make the fan experience better at games, so [we’re implementing] simple things. We bought a couple of spotlights for the gym, so when we do start lineups, we can turn off the lights. We are going to do halftime contests, and we are going to have a fan app.” The fan app encourages fans to be more interactive and involved, supporting STCE athletics. Fans can gain points from the app every time they go to an event by the app geolocating them; it will have trivia and other opportunities to earn points throughout the year. When the end of the year is wrapped up, the top point earners will get prizes.
Howard’s actionable plans will raise STCE athletics to the next level. Through his mission of advancing the growth of coaches and building a program where athletes push beyond their limits, they can succeed and make an interactive and involved fan dynamic. St. Charles East’s athletic program has a promising future ahead of them.