News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Tim Roth is returning to Central Oregon as Sisters AD. photo provided
After an extensive vetting process that started with 47 candidates and included interviews with district staff, coaches, parents and students, the district has selected Tim Roth of Astoria to serve as the district's first full-time athletic director/fundraiser.
Roth is finishing up his sixth year at Astoria High School as a chemistry teacher and swim coach. He grew up in Bend and graduated from Bend High School in 1991 before heading off to Willamette University. He graduated in 1995 with a degree in biology.
Tim and his wife met at Willamette University, where they both swam competitively for four years, and both earned All-American status.
"We are avid athletes," said Roth.
The couple has two children, a 7-year-old son that will enter second grade at Sisters Elementary School, and a daughter, 5, who will start kindergarten.
"This is homecoming for me," said Roth. "I'm excited to come home to Central Oregon ... to share the joy of living and the High Desert and the mountains with my children and my wife. In my opinion it is one of the coolest places you can grow up.
"I am excited about being an athletic director; I don't have a vision beyond that at this point. This will be my first role as an AD. I'm not one that looks to continually climb, when I find something that I'm passionate about I will continue doing it."
Roth worked as a swim coach for club and high-school swim teams for five years in Portland before moving to Astoria.
"I have been the fundraising director of the swim club on the coast for the last four years," said Roth. "I recognize that the ability to create a structure and a framework for all the groups to organize and fundraise effectively is really important."
Coordination of fundraising is a key element in the work laid out for him by the school board and superintendent (see related story, page 15). Roth said he is cognizant of donor fatigue.
"Astoria is very similar to Sisters in that it has one high school, one middle school and one elementary school," said Roth. "A lot of the business are very supportive of the school, but if every organization goes after the same Ford dealership for example, the donors can get very burned out.
"One of my missions and visions is to create a culture that is an 'athletics program,' where we are not trying to create just a swim team, or just a football team," said Roth. "We want to have a vibrant, excelling multidisciplinary athletics program. We aren't going to do that unless we are all on the same page as far as developing the program as a whole."
In a time when teachers and programs are being cut back, Roth is an advocate of the educational value of athletics.
"In my view, within our educational system athletics is just another avenue of teaching and learning," said Roth. "They are a crucial part of the way that we bring our youth up in this country. It is a really great opportunity to bring the community into our classroom. When you invite the community to watch the student athletes perform, you are inviting them into the classroom, an athletic classroom.
"There is a lot of teaching and a lot of learning in those locker rooms and on those fields and in the pool and on the track. These lessons last lifetimes for kids. If we don't value that, I think we are doing the kids a disservice. Athletics is just a different way of teaching."
Roth starts August 1 on his 220-day contract, which will run from August to the end of June each year.
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