BY PEDRO VELAZCO
Former Northwestern High School athletic director Mike Blackburn will feel a little smaller today, but also richer and fuller.
That’s the emotional effect of being recognized as a long-term standout. It’s a big honor for one individual, and he feels it’s a lot more than an individual accomplishment.
Blackburn will be recognized with the Athletic Director Presidential Hall of Fame Award tonight by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education during a banquet in Indianapolis.
News of the award put Blackburn in a reflective mood.
“I was very humbled by it,” Blackburn said. “Any time you receive an award like this, it’s not you, it’s not about you, it’s about all the people you’ve worked with and relied on over the years. That would include staff, and administration, and kids — student-athletes I should say — school board and everyone at Northwestern that I still consider family, and then my new work with athletic directors around the nation.”
Blackburn is the associate executive director of the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association.
“Part of [the award] is probably longevity,” he said. “I’ve worked at Northwestern 28 years but always been involved with the IHSAA and state athletic directors and national athletic director federation, and all the agencies that were stakeholders in providing the best programs for kids that you could. You get to know people and work alongside colleagues and it really comes down to everybody that’s surrounded you. You’re a representative of others that are just as deserving.”
Lowell High School AD Don Bales was a recipient of the same award in 2008. He explained how Blackburn has stood out.
“Mike has demonstrated balance in his career as he has not only mastered his work at the state and national level, but the connection he has always made with students — sponsoring the high school Leadership Club and Fellowship of Christian Athletes organization,” Bales said in a release from the NASPE. “His vision is to create an experience in an environment where people come with needs, and he is prepared to help them in their journey. He is certainly a positive person who continually strives for lifelong learning and self-improvement.”
Based out of an office in Indianapolis, Blackburn’s post with the NIAAA has him working with administrators throughout the country to teach courses and provide information designed to help administrators do their jobs efficiently. The goal is to help ADs create the best experiences for as many students as possible.
“We currently have about 8,500 members and it’s our desire to get every athletic director in the nation in the interscholastic level as a member to help them do their job, not just to be a member, but to assist them to do their job.”
With a career’s worth of work based in athletics, Blackburn gets plenty back in return as he’s watched the fruits of his labor.
During his time as an AD and after, Blackburn said the satisfaction comes from “working with kids and staff members, enjoying the people in the school and the community, the competition — which I’d have to say I miss a little bit of that right now — just the excitement of all that is part of athletic participation, providing the best programs possible, the safest programs possible. And participation to me is being the best you can be at your sport, but also offering opportunities for kids. That’s why we had 20 sports at Northwestern, and had the full array of IHSAA sports offered.
“Ultimately, it’s about kids and their future as adults. It’s much more important for a kid to be a participant than to be on the sideline, whether you’re winning all of them or not winning all of them.”
