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(courtesy of Donnie Collins, The Times-Tribune)

La PLUME, Pa. - Ryan Novitsky had to write the press release, the one informing local media of changes in store for Keystone College's athletic department.

He's written hundreds of press releases the last few years as Keystone's sports information director, the lifeline between the Giants and the ink-stained wretches. But this announcement seemed especially awkward, as he put it. After all, he knew there was a good chance those words would signal something somewhat historic, and it's never easy for someone used to breaking that sort of news about everyone else to do it about himself.

That press release, though, announced he would be Keystone's next director of athletics, and considering how much of a whirlwind that process was, the thought occurred to him that at just 31 years old, he might be the nation's youngest NCAA athletic director.

Even if he's not — an NCAA spokesman said the organization doesn't keep close-enough tabs on the ages of athletic directors to say for sure — age doesn't matter much anyway, he insists. This is a challenge he has felt prepared to handle for a while.

"I'm definitely excited for the role," Novitsky said. "It's overwhelming at times, with all the things going on with projects and trying to get the spring sports out on the field, battling COVID regulations.

"But, you know, I'm a hard worker."

This hasn't been an easy year for, well, anybody. But in the sports world, few had more difficult jobs than college athletic directors.

Athletes, as patiently as they waited and as much as they've wanted to compete, have only recently begun to get the chance. Coaches are getting antsy. Budgets are getting thinner. When your job is to provide opportunities in sport, and sports take a backseat to public health, it makes for challenging decisions, not to mention frank conversations. But the sports layoffs at many smaller institutions also brought about opportunities to reassess their purpose, their direction, and even their leadership.

Novitsky took over for Matt Grimaldi, who led the athletic department for 15 years before being let go on Jan. 29. Grimaldi did some big things. Keystone reinstituted several athletic programs, including football, and green-lighted major projects to bolster the school's athletic landscape during his tenure.

The next time a Keystone team plays a game, though, will be its first competition since last March. That gives Novitsky a chance to put an immediate stamp on the department that, in different circumstances, might have been more difficult to discern.

"It almost feels like we're hitting a reset button," he said.

In those glorious days before the pandemic, Novitsky was an ever-present figure at games. He had his role as a SID, of course. But he was also the point man for the officials working the game. Setting up for games became his responsibility. For all intents and purposes, he was managing games to a much greater degree than a typical SID would.

Privately, he believed himself qualified through that experience to be at least an assistant athletic director. So when he eventually, and surprisingly, wound up with the main job less than a year later, he already had some simple techniques to implement that could set the wheels in motion not just for the future, but the present.

"Within the last two weeks, I could see a change already," Novitsky said.

"I think it's just better communication across the board, just answering an email, just being here on campus more, just providing answers, and when I don't have an answer, at least saying why or why not. It's been about trying to get everyone back on board. The COVID scare is still going on, of course, but we really want to try to give these spring athletes the best chance to play. We really want to get them on the field again. We're doing whatever it takes to get them that opportunity to play."

Keystone is still waiting for that spring sports season to start in the Colonial States Athletic Conference, so the last few weeks were spent mostly trying to get everyone in the department on the same page.

Novitsky meets with members of the college's new Athletic Leadership Team. Baseball coach Jamie Shevchik and field hockey coach Ashley Irwin are now assistant athletic directors, adding various responsibilities in support of Novitsky and also adding more input from coaches when it comes to the direction the athletic department wants to take.

He'll feel most like an athletic director when the games start again. That, maybe, is the one thing about being the new guy, the young guy, the guy hired to lead Keystone athletics out of the pandemic. He's heading into the unknown, really. We all are.

Ryan Novitsky knows, though, there's nobody he'd rather be walking into it with than the people surrounding him. And, they can be sure he's going to work hard to show he's the right person to lead them.

"It's definitely a challenge, but I'm up for it," Novitsky said. "I think we have a really good team and a really good collection of coaches. We can do something special at Keystone.

"There's things we'll definitely have to tweak and change, that we're kind of just changing the culture. But I think we have a really good opportunity in the CSAC to compete for championships every single season in every sport that we're in and just solidify our athletic programs in Northeast PA."

Contact the writer:
dcollins@timesshamrock.com;
570-348-9125;
@DonnieCollinsTT