TPS adds AD duties to assistant middle school principal position

By unanimous decision, Tecumseh Public School Board approved adding the duties of Athletic Director to the Tecumseh Middle School Assistant Principal position of Greg Lewis on Monday.Normally, the board does not approve the filling of the position, according to board president Ed Tritt.“This is kind of a different situation because it is a shared position and it makes a little bit of a difference,” he said.In speaking to the board, Supt. Kelly Coffin said having former athletic director Casey Randolph leave the district allowed the administration to look into various ways to fill the position.“I do want to thank the administrative team, because we had a lot of ideas and thought about a lot of different ways that we could do this, and they all agreed that Greg Lewis would be the best person to do this,” Coffin said. “This will be a shared position. Greg will continue his duties as middle school assistant principal, and then also serve as the athletic director.“We’d like to try this for one year. We will be revisiting this at the end of the school year. But, the administrative team really thought this was something that we could do.”Lewis became a TPS employee in 1989 after having already coached track in 1980 and 1982. He was also the head girls track coach in Saline (1983-84) after assisting the football program (1982-83). He started coaching for the Indians again in 1990 as an assistant football coach and the head JV softball coach.“That evolved into me doing varsity softball. I took over in 1994 and did that until 2003,” he said.He also helped coach football off and on during that same time period.“I switched from teacher to administrator in 1995 so that made it hard to do two sports,” he said. “But prior to that I had done middle school football, I coached freshman basketball a few years and I coached middle school basketball for some time.”Lewis taught 8th grade science for 10 years and was an administrator from 1994-1999, went back into the classroom and back to administration as the middle school assistant principal in 2008 where he still remains. He has also been in charge of the middle school athletics for the past five years.His office hours between the middle school and the high school athletic office have not been set just yet as he is getting a feel for where and when he is needed most but said he has great support to help in the transition.“I’m trying to get a handle on what’s going on in the AD office,” he said. “Jenny Poston is great. She’s got everything wired up tight, so I call and ask questions and get speedy answers.”When it comes time for review of the new combined position Lewis anticipates he’ll still be available if needed.“I had geared my life so that I could retire after 30 years at age 50, because I have my military years that I purchased,” he said. “But I didn’t really want to retire at age 50. Maybe this will filet me out and I’ll want to retire at the end of the year. It’s not my plan. Really what I want to do is the best I can do for the school, the athletic department and the community.”