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He returned four years later, got a job as an elementary health teacher and worked his way up from volunteer assistant to varsity boys’ basketball coach before being named athletic director in 2014.
Since then he’s served as president of the Massachusetts Secondary Schools Athletic Directors Association and on the MIAA’s Tournament Management Committee. We sat down with the AD of the Year to learn what he’s most proud of and where he sees high school athletics going.
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Let’s go back to when you first became AD, was there anything big picture or overarching that you wanted to do?
Student enrollment had gone down and so had athlete participation. I knew our facilities were outdated and improving them would entice good coaches. We made a number of improvements: A new softball field, a new turf field, new weight room, we renovated the pool. Then it’s all about branding. Our enrollment went way down. Kids were leaving to go to prep schools or [Greater New Bedford]. We wanted to run a branding campaign and show off all our facilities and what the school has to offer. We’ve really done a lot with the help of a great administration and the City.
Tom Tarpey stands in front of new scoreboards adorning the new softball and lacrosse fields that were constructed under his watch as New Bedford High athletic director.Brendan Kurie
More recently, what has your focus been?
We have great kids and I want to get them as much recognition as I can. The athletic directors of urban schools have joined forces to try to create equal opportunities. Right now, our kids can’t afford to go to clinics or camps or get the individual coaching that a lot of other schools and kids can. We’re trying to make it equitable so our kids can be more competitive. In New Bedford, I’m working with a group in the city called Friends of New Bedford Athletics. They can help kids if they want to play for an AAU team or travel for their sport.
As an outsider observer, it’s always seemed New Bedford had a strong emphasis on the — for lack of a better term — non-brand name sports. Golf, swimming, tennis. Has that been a specific emphasis of yours?
All the sports are important. I have tried to make sure that all our sports teams/athletes get the recognition they deserve. Also, I have been able to hire some great coaches who have really built a family atmosphere around their programs. Like the swimming team, we’re successful — maybe we’re not 100 percent successful at the state level — but we can win our league and we had someone win a state championship. Field hockey is the same, Kathy Rezendes does a great job with that. Wrestling with Steve [Sentes]. Track is starting to get back up to really good numbers. I got lucky with hiring some of the right people, and some of the people were already in place when I got the job.
How much of an AD’s success is that, hiring the right coaches?
You have to go out and find coaches in some sports. It’s not like it used to be where you had 6, 7, 8 people applying for a job. You don’t get many any more. You have to go out and find people. It used to be you’d be a volunteer assistant, then a freshman coach, then a JV coach, then if you were lucky enough you’d get the varsity job.
What are some of the other challenges of the job? I’m guessing officials and transportation are up there.
Because of the lack of officials the logistics for rescheduling games has become very difficult. It used to be you’d have rain and have to cancel a game and you’d talk to the other athletic director, pick a date and, boom, that’s the date. Now you have to call the bus company and see if they have a bus available. Then you have to call the assignor and see if they have officials and a lot of times they don’t. Then you have to change the date again, or play a game at night so the officials can do their afternoon game. When I first started it wasn’t like that.
New Bedford’s boys’ volleyball team is ranked in the Top 10 of the Globe Top 20 poll.JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE/Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe
What can be done about the drain of officials?
We’re working to make it part of our curriculum and offer classes to get young people interested. At the elementary and local sports level there aren’t many young people officiating at all. Another big goal for me is making sure our high school game officials are not getting any lip from athletes or parents. We meet with our families during all our preseason meetings to make sure they understand expectations. If someone says something, we address it right away.
The MSSADA conference was last week in Hyannis, what did you take out of it?
There was some really eye-opening stuff about using AI. I don’t use it that much, very rarely at all, but it can really help us with our job.
As far as schedule making? What are the use cases?
Yes, scheduling and communications to parents and families. You can put in ‘I need a rainy day schedule with these sports’ and it puts it out for you. It can save us a lot of time.
You were the MSSADA president in 2023-24. What are the MSSADA president’s duties?
We meet with [MIAA executive director Bob] Baldwin once a month and any concerns, new topics, we talk to him about. We run professional development. The big thing, come October, is planning our conference, which is a lot of work.
How do you see the job of athletic director changing in the next 10-20 years?
I think participation rates at public high schools will be a challenge. There’s already a lot of schools that don’t have the lower-level programs — how do we address that? Changes in sports such as football with concussions and such. New sports such as video games, flag football for girls, and pickleball. But if you add sports and you don’t have high participation numbers, where are you getting the kids to play those sports? Are you pulling them from other sports?
You have 35 years as an assistant, head coach, AD. How have you seen the kids change over the years, or have they changed?
One, they’re specializing, which I don’t agree with, and Two, I think when they get to high school they’re not accustomed to the commitment we expect from them. When they play on these outside teams they don’t have to be as committed. ‘Eh, I’m going to miss practice today’ and they still play in the game. For us, it’s mandatory and if you miss it has to be for a good reason.Now, sometimes with our kids, they’re taking care of their brothers or sisters so they’re coming in late for practice, so we’re understanding of that and I have some old-school coaches I had to work with to change their mind-set a little.
You mentioned specialization, are we building better athletes this way?
I don’t think so. Too many parents think their kid is going to get a Division 1 scholarship. ‘I’m not going to play basketball because I’m going D1 in football.’ We always tell our kids, if you look at the Division 1 football players, most of them played multiple sports.
Let’s say the next Tom Tarpey is thinking of getting into high school athletics, what would be your advice?
I’ve been involved in sports my whole life and it’s the best thing I could do for myself. But it’s a lot of time. A lot of the athletic directors are leaving the position to become assistant principals because of the amount of time required. But it’s a great job and it’s fulfilling.
Brendan Kurie can be reached at brendan.kurie@globe.com. Follow him on X @BrendanKurie.
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