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Mt. Ararat athletic director Heidi Wright is settling into her new role, after coming to Topsham from her Vermont home on July 14.

Wright, who replaces Geoff Godo, previously was the athletics and activities director at Oxbow High in Bradford, Vermont.

The Times Record sat down with Wright recently to discuss her decision to come to Mt. Ararat and her vision for the future of Eagle athletics.

Editor’s note: Answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Why did you decide to leave Vermont for Maine?

It’s really hard to preach to kids, “you can do anything you want in life,” if you’re not willing to (be a) role model. So, if I’m somebody who’s trying to teach kids that, if you want to apply to go to this college, and you want to continue to play and give it a shot, if I don’t do what I recommend other people do, (I’m) kind of a hypocrite, right? So yeah, life’s meant to be lived, and I love what I do. So, why not come to Maine and experience Maine?

The other side of it is, (Mt. Ararat) took a chance on me. Why wouldn’t I take a chance? 

I don’t know. It’s it’s hard to explain, and I’ve not been able to satisfy anybody with the answer that I’ve given them to basically be like, why not? 

I’m young enough to be able to do this. The facility is beautiful. The community is beautiful. I’m growing my career. As an athletic director, I’m continuing to grow. I could have stayed at Oxbow. I could have been there for a very long time. This is a bigger school that has more programs.

(According to recent U.S. News & World Report figures, Mt. Ararat has about two times the school enrollment of Oxbow, a 7-12 school.)

How do you measure the success of a team/program?

Everybody wants and thinks that the driving factor with a lot of athletic directors is the wins and loss columns. That’s not how I look at it. Program participation, kids’ involvement; the more kids that we’re keeping involved in these things, the greater our programs grow. That’s success.

The kid that at the beginning of the season couldn’t do the drill, but by midway through the season, can do the drill, and then is able to execute it in a game. That’s success. 

I personally believe all of that stuff is the foundation to have success in the wins and loss columns long-term. And if we do all the little things right, and we put all the building blocks into place, as time goes on, you’re setting yourself up where you are successful, and the program is successful.

The greatest success is seeing kids graduate behind the school every single year, and knowing that this department had a positive influence in their life, and they’re going to carry on the time management, the dependability, the ability to have adult conversations exiting high school because they were involved in the athletic program. If I do my job very, very well, coaches have all the tools that they need, and we’re putting all of this transferable life skills into kids’ tool boxes because they participated in athletics. That’s not necessarily selling tickets for the Friday night game, but it’s giving them the best opportunity to be as successful in life as they can be.

A lot of kids don’t necessarily see that. They’ll probably figure it out. I mean, I’ve had kids come back a number of years later and be like, “I didn’t understand it at the time, but now I get it,” and “Thank you, because of your expectations, I am able to do X, Y and Z now in life.”

How will coaches be evaluated?

This is part of that whole aspect of things. I’m not coming in here with the mindset I’m going to change everything. I’m coming in here with the mindset of, for this year, a lot of it’s going to just be observing how things work. I’m here to move forward. I’m not here to look in the past. I’m sure the MPA’s big push is for sportsmanship and appropriate behavior at games, just like it is across the country.

I think that it’s there. It’s a balancing act, right? We don’t want kids running backward in a soccer game because they knocked some kid over when the play is really moving, and they need to be moving forward, running back to pick somebody up. But when the play is dead and they bend over and help a teammate up or an opponent up, that’s good sportsmanship. That should be highlighted. I’m not somebody who’s going to sit there and be like, “Don’t hit him in a football game because that’s not nice.” No, that’s part of the game.

But there are opportunities for growth in every aspect of athletics, where it’s important to be fierce competitors, but at the end of the game, we’re shaking hands, (saying) “It was a good game. It was a good match.” I’m super proud Oxbow was awarded the Mona Garone Sportsmanship Award at the end of basketball season this past winter. I had set out in my career to achieve the award; it’s named after a long-time basketball coach at Oxbow. That was a very proud moment for me in my career.

Back to your question about how coaches will be evaluated. Again, that’s one of those things that will be an ongoing work in progress. I have to take what’s been happening and work with administration to say this is where we’re going to go. I don’t do this job by myself. I don’t make decisions by myself. I make decisions as a collaborative part of a team, (including) kids’ opinions, coaches’ opinions, administration’s opinions. Those all, in my opinion, are necessary voices. The student voice being the biggest one to me. 

I want to hear from the kids. I want to know what the kids’ experience is. I want to know when the kids are unhappy, frustrated, upset, having a great time, you know? Well, why are you having a great time? What’s so great? Because that, at the end of the day, is who we do this for. For them to have a positive experience.

What are your short- and long-term goals for the athletic department?

It’s hard to answer that, because I’ve not been here long enough to be like, “OK, so these are the three things I want to have changed by whatever the term, the date, that we decide.” It’s too early to answer that.

I imagine this would be a much different conversation at the end of the first year. I need more time to be able to look and observe.

I’ve met a handful of kids, so I haven’t had their input to be like, “Oh, those are the things that you guys really want to change. OK, how do we go about doing that?”

I think one of the big things that my goal is is to create an athletic leadership council this first year for them to be the driving forces behind, “Oh, hey, we need to buy this new piece of equipment. What should we get? How should we do this? Let’s review and evaluate the handbook.” That’s how I’ve done it, and I’m proud of that.

As the newbie, I just want to make sure that the officials show up, and the busses show up, and making sure the day-to-day operations go well. There’s a lot to learn. I leave here every day exhausted. So there’s a lot to do right now in prep for making sure that the seasons go off without a hitch. 

The Mt. Ararat boys hockey team did not finish its season because of a hazing investigation. What are your thoughts on what happened?

What I’m going to say about that is that all happened in the past, and I am here and we’re moving forward. I will follow MPA, I will follow school board policies, I will follow expectations and rules. But as regards to what happened in the past, I personally have to leave it there, and I have got to focus on building and moving things in the forward direction.

How do you do that? How does a school move on from that?

I think it’s much of what we’ve talked about. I can make it positive. I can find the positive. 

And I’m not speaking directly in any way, shape or form about what has transpired here.

Again, the position’s a balancing act. These are the expectations. These are the rules. You have to work within those. There’s no questions asked. The rules are the rules. They will be followed.

I have incredibly high expectations. I have incredibly high expectations for myself. I don’t like to look at myself as a perfectionist, but that’s really what it is.

It’s transparency. It’s honesty. People have to know what, largely, kids have to know what is expected, what will be tolerated and not tolerated. 

What are you looking forward to most this year?

I think it’s every athletic director’s dream, or at least one of my big ones, is the games under the lights, which there will be a plethora of, which I think is amazing. There will be moments where I will be almost in awe, and be like, “Is this real? Am I really doing this?”

I think that the wins will take care of themselves. They always do.

From what I can see, the fall coaches are incredibly passionate about what they’re doing. They’re a great group. Everybody has been so welcoming. I can’t wait for the kids to get here.

I’m excited to get started, but I think that first game is going to be really special. I’ll probably cry in a corner somewhere. At some point I’ll get a little teared up. It inevitably happens. There’s usually a moment when the national anthem starts that I am like sitting there behind my sunglasses trying to wipe away it here, simply because it’s just a moving moment for me. It always is.