News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Bob Macauley will return to the field as the Outlaws football coach this season. Macauley and Superintendent Elaine Drakulich announced the move on Friday.
Macauley stepped aside last year to focus solely on his duties as Sisters High School Principal. His son Dusty Macauley took the helm as head coach and led the Outlaws in a rebuilding year.
Dusty did not seek renewal of his contract as coach, and has moved to Seattle, where he is seeking a masters degree in education, according to his father.
With Dusty Macauley out of the picture and a hiring freeze in place due to a massive budget shortfall, the return of Bob Macauley, who has led the Outlaws to two state championships, was for all intents and purposes inevitable.
"Currently Sisters High School is without a football coach, and we will not be adding a position that would accommodate hiring a coach in the next biennium," Drakulich said in a prepared statement.
"Bob is willing to coach," Drakulich told The Nugget. "He's an outstanding coach as you know and I know. We have come up with an agreement that I think is extremely positive for this school district."
That agreement entails turning some of Macauley's duties as principal over to vice principal Mark Stewart. The vice principal will be asked to extend supervision duties at evening events through the fall. He will be the administration contact for the community in the 3 to 5 p.m. time period and take Macauley's role on the school's Technology Committee, which oversees the functioning of technology in the school.
Stewart will also work on coordination of college-level course work for school academies.
Stewart will receive an extra $4,000 to take on the extra duties. Macauley will take a $4,000 pay cut to cover the expense.
Macauley told The Nugget that he is "excited about the opportunity."
His love for the game is well known in the Sisters community, but Macauley said that he also simply values the time spent with kids - time that is limited in his role as principal.
"It's really an administrative position away from kids," he said. "That's how I feel about it."
Coaching keeps him connected, he said and "I also get a lot of energy back from it. For me, it actually helps me as a principal."
The success of the arrangement will be evaluated in February. Macauley will resume all of his duties after the football season is over.
Both Drakulich and Macauley indicated that the arrangement will probably remain in place for two years, since new hires are almost certainly impossible over the course of the next biennium due to state budget constraints.
Macauley said he has already begun his football work. He is "organizing kids" and preparing for the Outlaw Open golf fundraiser.
The coach said the annual summer football camp scheduled at the end of June will be held in Sisters rather than in the Willamette Valley this year as a means of softening the financial impact on parents of players.
"What I'm trying to do is keep it on campus ... and bring teams here," he said. "I'm trying to be sensitive to family needs."
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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