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But, after considering retirement for the last two years, Doug Chickering announced Wednesday his 23rd year as WIAA executive director will be his last. He will leave his position July 31, 2009, after 45 years in education.
Chickering, only the fourth executive director in the WIAA’s 113-year history, made the announcement via a mid-day news release to schools and the media. During an interview in his office, Chickering said he waited until after the recently completed series of WIAA Area Meetings to announce his retirement plans to keep the focus of those meetings on issues.
“It was a tough decision,” said Chickering, who will turn 68 in January. “Any time you do something like this for 23 years and you’ve got the passion for high school sports that I enjoy it’s a difficult decision. The reality of it the last couple days has had an impact on me, but I’m sure as I go through the tournaments this fall I’ll feel comfortable with the decision.”
The WIAA has enjoyed significant growth in its tournament series and its membership under Chickering, who replaced John Roberts — the WIAA’s executive director the previous 29 years — in November 1985.
When Chickering took the job, the WIAA sponsored tournaments in 22 sports covering 48 divisions. During his tenure, WIAA tournaments have grown to include 74 divisions in 27 sports — including the separate team championships in boys and girls tennis and wrestling, which were all added on Chickering’s watch during the early 1990s.
However, many believe Chickering’s legacy will be the growth in the WIAA since 2000 after WISAA — the governing body for the state’s private-school athletics for more than 40 years — ceased operation. That led to its schools (53 of them at the time) to join the WIAA, which has grown from 425 schools when Chickering arrived in 1985 to 515 schools today.
“There were a lot of people, who worked real hard to get us to the point where we could accept the religous and independent schools into our membership,” said Chickering, who helped organize an ad-hoc committee that spent four years addressing differences between the two organizations after WISAA made public in January 1996 its plans to dissolve in 2000.
WIAA assistant director Marcy Thurwachter credited Chickering’s people skills and “his ability to think on his feet” for leading that transition and for his work on other delicate matters.
“It’s very rare for Doug to stumble or to either not give the correct information or not have that immediate response,” Thurwachter said, “plus be able to call the person by their first name.”
Even so, Chickering knows he hasn’t made many friends among those critical of his lack of action on divisional placement of private schools for WIAA tournament play.
“I’m well aware that there are some issues associated with (that) that cause many to think that the deck is a little stacked toward the newer members of the association,” he said. “I’d just ask everybody to keep in mind that about the same time the religous and independent schools joined the WIAA, public-school open-enrollment was enacted in the state. Both of those have had an impact — especially in the more populated parts of the state. Eventually, as we track student movement, there will be some quantifiable information that perhaps will lead us in a different direction than we are right now.”
Still, most concerns over matters related to a membership with public and private schools have quieted considerably. In fact, Chickering, who structured the recent WIAA area meetings to give school officials the chance to speak out on such matters knowing they would be his last, heard very little to suggest his successor will inherit many unresolved issues.
“I think his true legacy is the fact that we as an organization are highly respected — both in the state and, in particular, at the national level,” said interim Port Edwards principal Gus Mancuso, whose six-year term on the WIAA Board of Control ended in June. “Many of our neighboring associations and (others) throughout the country have valued Doug’s leadership and the way we conduct business within our state. That is happening because of Doug’s leadership.”
Continuing that legacy will be a challenge for the WIAA’s next executive director, according to Barneveld principal and Board of Control president Kevin Knudson.
“Having gone to six national conventions, Wisconsin stands out by far as one of the leaders of high school sports and that’s because of Doug, said Knudson, who praised Chickering’s work on legal matters and in getting WIAA state tournaments into the finest facilities in the state. “You go ... to these meetings and everyone knows Doug Chickering.”
