Antilles hires Tipton as new AD
Published: August 27, 2010
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As the new athletic director at Antilles School, George Tipton has ideas for how to improve the sports program and involve more students.
ST. THOMAS — Even before he moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2005, George Tipton knew he wanted to work with children and in athletics.
Tipton, a 38-year-old Michigan native, was hired as the new athletic director at Antilles School in June and replaces Charlie Davis, who has assisted the program in a limited role since stepping down two years ago.
Tipton is the newest athletic director — Ruben Mercado took over at St. Joseph High School on St. Croix last March — among all public and private high schools in the territory and started working at the private school on St. Thomas this month.
“When this opportunity came, I really had to ask myself the tough questions,” said Tipton, who worked for Marriott Corporation before accepting his first athletic director position. “I wanted to do something I truly love and have a passion for and that’s working with kids. I’m glad I’m here and very excited for this chance.”
Tipton is a Michigan State University graduate and was the boys basketball coach at his high school alma mater, the Roeper School in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., for nine years before moving to St. Thomas.
He married his wife, Jillian, a middle school Latin teacher at Antilles, in December and is already familiar with the local high school sports scene and the Hurricanes’ athletic teams.
“We saw passion, enthusiasm and joy in George,” said Marva Bennett, the head of the Antilles Middle and Upper Schools. “He has a vision and he has a commitment to student-athletes and their families. I know George is really excited to working with the community and for us at Antilles, that is really important.”
In high school, Tipton was a four-year varsity performer in basketball and baseball. It was during those years that he realized he wasn’t going to play in the NBA.
“I was too short to even play basketball in college,” he said.
But that he wanted to stay close to competitive athletics.
“I feel athletics is a integral part of a well-rounded education,” Tipton said. “I’ve always thought that since I was young.”
One of his goals as athletic director is to get more students involved. Tipton is encouraging kids who may not be athletically gifted to contribute in other ways like being a team manager, writer or statistician.
“There’s such a small percentage of high school athletes that actually play in college,” he said. “But if you like the competition and you still want to be involved, then there’s so many different avenues you can take besides being on the court or field.”
Tipton also wants to create an Antilles School Sports Hall of Fame that would include past and current student-athletes, coaches, athletic directors, volunteers and anyone that has contributed to the athletics program. He’s hoping the inaugural class will be inducted during this year’s spring sports banquet.
It all goes back to establishing a sense of tradition. But at a transient school like Antilles, Tipton admits there are some challenges.
“This school has the best athletic facilities on the island but as far as numbers, we can’t compete with the other public schools,” he said. “One advantage we do have is that I can hopefully see a lot of these kids start out in the fourth grade and watch them grow until high school graduation. If we can work together as one cohesive group and if the kids stick together, we’ll be very competitive by the time they get to high school.”
His first order of business was filling any vacant coaching positions among the fall sports teams. Antilles participates in girls varsity and junior-varsity volleyball, boys (and possibly j.v.) volleyball, Arawaks tackle football, j.v. flag football and cross country.
The former high school basketball coach may also be active on the sidelines this winter.
“After college, I owned my own business, which allowed me to coach basketball in the evenings,” Tipton said. “What I found in doing that is that I love working with kids. I ran my own basketball fundamentals camp in the summer and really found my niche in working with kids.”
When he first came to St. Thomas five years ago, Tipton approached Davis about conducting a similar basketball camp at the school for under-privileged children in the community. Because of time restraints and work conflicts, nothing became of the idea but Tipton feels the right pieces are in place now with his new job and a free basketball camp at the school will become a reality.
“George has jumped right into his role and has plenty of great ideas,” said Fred Hupprich, who is a physical education teacher at Antilles and has been involved with the school’s athletics for the last 24 years. “This may be his first athletic director job but he has quite a background in athletics. If he keeps up this enthusiasm, he’s going to do a great job.”
— Contact sports reporter Aaron Gray at 774-8772 ext. 352 or e-mail agray@dailynews.vi.
