Director of Athletics

The Pingry School; Basking Ridge (NJ); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

The Pingry School seeks a strategic, student-centered leader to serve as its next Director of Athletics. This role reports to the Associate Head of School and provides vision, leadership, and operational management for Pingry’s Middle and Upper School athletics program.

It entails partnership with the Head of School on institutional priorities and Pingry Athletics’ future direction. The ideal candidate will bring athletic administration experience, strong judgment, emotional intelligence, and a

Qualifications

• Requires advanced degree and significant experience in athletic administration.
• Strong leadership, communication, and relationship-building skills.
• Ability to develop coaches and staff and manage multi-season programs.

Responsibilities

• Set and communicate a clear vision for Pingry Athletics that aligns with the school mission.
• Oversee Middle and Upper School interscholastic athletics, including scheduling, team structures, and program evaluation.
• Lead operations, facilities planning, budgeting, and compliance to ensure efficient game-day readiness.
• Partner with health/wellness, college counseling, DEIB, and other divisions to support student-athlete development and belonging.
• Serve as a public-facing ambassador for Pingry Athletics and collaborate with admissions and advancement for storytelling and outreach.

Education

Advanced degree in education/athletic administration

Job description

Position Summary

The Pingry School seeks a strategic, student-centered, and inspiring leader to serve as its next Director of Athletics. Serving as a member of the School’s Administrative Team and reporting to the Associate Head of School, the Director of Athletics will provide vision, leadership, and operational management for Pingry’s Middle and Upper School athletics program, while maintaining a close strategic partnership with the Head of School on matters related to institutional priorities, community experience, and the future direction of Pingry Athletics.

Pingry Athletics has a long and distinguished history and is a highly visible, deeply valued part of the student and family experience. With a large, coeducational program that includes more than 30 varsity teams and approximately 70 teams overall, the next Director of Athletics will lead a multi-person athletics office, supervise coaches and athletics staff, and steward the systems, relationships, culture, and standards needed for a competitive, mission-aligned, and developmentally rich program.

This is not a traditional “high school athletics only” role.

The next Director joins Pingry at an important moment of evolution. The landscape of independent school athletics continues to shift through year-round club specialization, college recruiting pressures, transfer and reclassification trends, emerging NIL-related dynamics, heightened expectations, and increasing attention to student-athlete wellness, performance, and belonging. Pingry seeks a leader who can honor the program’s history while strengthening the structure, communication, role clarity, coach development, and distributed leadership needed for the future.

The ideal candidate will bring strong experience in athletic administration, excellent judgment, emotional intelligence, operational discipline, and a clear commitment to mission-aligned athletics. They will understand that coaching is not only about building competitive teams; it is also about teaching. They will value athletics as central to student formation and will know how to build a culture where students learn how to compete, lead, handle adversity, pursue excellence, and represent Pingry with integrity. This leader will appreciate the developmental differences between Middle School and Upper School athletics, ensuring that Pingry’s approach is ambitious and competitive while remaining educational, age-appropriate, and grounded in the School’s values of sportsmanship, accountability, teamwork, and honor.

Candidate Profile

This role is for you if…

• You are a strategic athletics leader who can set direction and build alignment. You understand how to develop and communicate a compelling vision for athletics that reflects school mission, student development, and competitive ambition. You can move between big-picture strategy and daily execution without losing sight of either.
• You are a student-centered educator. You see athletics as a powerful vehicle for the growth and formation of young people and a place where students learn character, leadership, resilience, belonging, wellness, joy, and healthy competition through real experiences. You understand that athletics offers meaningful opportunities to help students navigate teachable moments, learn from mistakes without being defined by them, and develop the judgment, accountability, and confidence they need beyond the field, court, pool, or track.
• You balance ambition and restraint. You believe Pingry Athletics should continue to grow, innovate, compete, and distinguish itself while remaining grounded in the School’s values. Rather than pursuing “winning at all costs,” you are committed to building a program where strong structures, clear standards, excellent coaching, and a healthy culture help students and teams thrive.
• You are organized, decisive, and systems-minded. You can bring order to a complex environment with many moving parts, including schedules, transportation, facilities, officials, rosters, budgets, compliance, communications, coach standards, and seasonal transitions. You value clear processes, shared calendars, documentation, data, and communication rhythms that reduce reactivity and increase trust.
• You are a people developer and team builder. You know how to hire, coach, evaluate, and retain. You believe strong programs are built through clear expectations, accountability, regular feedback, thoughtful professional development, necessary transitions, and a culture where people understand both their lane and their contribution to the whole.
• You are a visible and relational community leader. You are energized by supporting coaches, being present at games, walking the sidelines and stands, greeting families and visiting teams, celebrating students, and representing Pingry Athletics with warmth, professionalism, and pride. You understand that the Athletic Director’s presence should add to the experience rather than become the only way the experience works.
• You bring strong judgment with families and external partners. You understand that parents are champions, advocates, supporters, and important partners in the athletic experience. You can listen carefully, communicate directly, hold boundaries, and respond with consistency and fairness.
• You are a collaborative operator and trusted senior leader. You exercise authority without over-functioning. You delegate effectively, empower colleagues, and build a leadership model that does not depend on one person carrying every decision, every escalation, and every operational detail.
• You understand independent schools. You know that athletics sits inside a larger educational ecosystem. You can collaborate with Division Directors, faculty, Admissions, Advancement, Communications, Facilities and Operations, HR, Health & Wellness, and student support colleagues. You understand that the family experience, student‑athlete experience, competitive culture, and institutional brand are deeply connected.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership, Vision, and Institutional Alignment

• Set and communicate a clear, inspiring vision for Pingry Athletics that reflects the School’s mission, Honor Code, commitment to student growth, and aspiration to provide an excellent student‑athlete experience across all levels of play.
• Serve as the senior leader for Middle and Upper School Athletics, partnering with the Head of School, Associate Head of School, senior administrators, and institutional leaders to align athletics with Pingry’s broader priorities, including strategic planning, student experience, community life, family engagement, enrollment, advancement, communications, facilities planning, and risk management.
• Lead Athletics through its next stage of growth by strengthening the systems, role clarity, coach standards, communication norms, sport administration, and long‑term planning needed to support a competitive and mission‑aligned program.
• Monitor emerging trends in independent school and youth athletics, including club specialization, transfer and reclassification dynamics, NIL‑related developments, college recruiting pressures, student wellness, performance, and family expectations.

Athletics Program Leadership and Sport Administration

• Lead and supervise the full Middle and Upper School interscholastic athletics program, setting direction for seasonal planning, sport administration, team structures, practices, competitions, league and tournament participation, and program evaluation while ensuring appropriate Athletics team members have clear ownership, expectations, and accountability for execution.
• Establish clear expectations for sport administration and management, including primary and secondary sport administrator assignments, escalation paths, coach communication, family communication, and game‑day coverage.
• Ensure Middle School Athletics receives intentional leadership, communication, scheduling, and operational support while remaining integrated into Pingry’s broader 6–12 athletics philosophy.
• Maintain a visible presence across athletic events, creating a culture in which students, families, coaches, and visiting teams experience Pingry as welcoming, organized, competitive, and values‑driven.
• Use data, feedback, and institutional insight to assess program quality, including team schedules, facility use, student participation, coach performance, student‑athlete experience, and future program needs.

Student‑Athlete Experience, Culture, Wellness, and Belonging

• Champion a student‑athlete experience that extends beyond games, schedules, and wins, creating an athletics culture where students at all levels — novice, developing, competitive, and college‑bound — feel seen, challenged, supported, and proud to represent Pingry.
• Partner across Health and Wellness, CAST, College Counseling, DEIB, Sports Medicine, Strength & Conditioning, and Student‑Athlete Success to support students from Middle School through graduation, with attention to leadership, belonging, wellness, performance, mental preparation, recovery, nutrition, and healthy decision‑making.
• Help the broader school community understand and celebrate athletics as an essential part of the Pingry experience, recognizing the contributions of student‑athletes, coaches, and teams to school spirit, character, community life, and institutional pride.

Operations, Facilities, Scheduling, and Game‑Day Readiness

• Lead the operational system that supports Pingry Athletics, setting direction and accountability for the Athletics operations team so that scheduling, transportation, officials, facility usage, equipment, rosters, athletic training coverage, event staffing, and game‑day logistics are executed through clear ownership, strong communication, and consistent standards.
• Set expectations for a strong Athletics–Facilities partnership, ensuring Athletics operations leaders manage day‑to‑day coordination for practices, contests, tournaments, rentals, major athletic events, and seasonal transitions with proactive planning, clear communication, and reliable follow‑through.
• Strengthen Athletics policies, procedures, calendars, coach expectations, handbooks, and operational workflows so the department has clear rhythms for seasonal readiness, weekly operational review, and timely communication of decisions, risks, and needs.
• Build structures that allow the Director of Athletics to remain visible, strategic, and community‑facing, while ensuring site management, daily logistics, and operational details are reliably handled by the appropriate members of the Athletics team.

Budget, Resource Stewardship, and Program Sustainability

• Develop and manage the Athletics budget in partnership with the CFOO and Athletics leadership team, ensuring staffing, equipment, uniforms, facilities, travel, officials, rentals, technology, sports medicine, strength & conditioning, and program enhancements are planned, prioritized, and resourced responsibly.
• Evaluate requests for growth with sound judgment, distinguishing between program desires and institutional needs by considering workflow, student impact, budget clarity, operational capacity, and alignment with school priorities.
• Support long‑term resource planning for Athletics, including facilities, performance resources, staffing, and operational capacity, while maintaining the high standards expected of a leading independent school athletics program.

Compliance, Risk Management, and Student Safety

• Create systems of accountability for safety, compliance, and risk‑management standards, setting expectations and supervising the staff and systems responsible for school policies, conference expectations, league and NJSIAA requirements, health and safety protocols, and required documentation.
• Partner with Athletics Operations, Sports Medicine, Strength & Conditioning, Student‑Athlete Success, and school leadership to ensure eligibility, coach certifications, emergency preparedness, concussion and injury‑response practices, transportation expectations, and student‑safety protocols are current, clearly communicated, and consistently followed.

Advancement, Admissions, Communications, and External Relations

• Serve as a public‑facing ambassador for Pingry Athletics, building strong relationships with students, families, alums, faculty, staff, trustees, peer schools, leagues, and community partners.
• Partner with Enrollment Management to support prospective student‑athletes and families, ensuring coaches understand the admissions process, recruitment boundaries, communication expectations, and the role athletics can appropriately play in representing the Pingry experience.
• Collaborate with Advancement and Communications to strengthen Athletics storytelling by identifying appropriate athletics‑related stories, alum engagement opportunities, Hall of Fame and homecoming traditions, milestone celebrations, and campaign‑aligned priorities, while maintaining clear donor strategy and gift conversation boundaries.
• Ensure public‑facing Athletics communications are timely, accurate, and brand‑aligned, celebrating student‑athletes, coaches, teams, and program milestones in ways that reflect Pingry’s values and strengthen community pride.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree required in education, athletic administration, sport management, leadership, business, or a related field.
• Significant experience in athletic administration, athletics leadership, coaching, sport operations, or student‑athlete development, preferably in an independent school, highly selective K–12 school, college preparatory environment, or high‑academic collegiate athletics setting.
• Demonstrated experience supervising and developing people, including coaches, administrators, staff, or high‑performing teams.
• Strong understanding of student‑athlete development, coach management, parent communication, sportsmanship, wellness, safety, and the role of athletics in an educational institution.
• Experience managing complex operations, including scheduling, facilities coordination, transportation, budget planning, compliance, event support, and multi‑season program logistics.
• Ability to lead in a visible, high‑expectation community with professionalism, warmth, discretion, sound judgment, and emotional intelligence.
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to speak publicly, write clearly, manage sensitive conversations, and communicate across students, families, coaches, faculty, administrators, trustees, alums, and external partners.
• Demonstrated ability to build relationships and work collaboratively across departments, including Admissions, Advancement, Communications, Facilities