Over the course of four years, Becky Czuppon has made the Oakville Senior High School volleyball program one of the best in the state.
Under her guidance as the head coach of the girls’ volleyball team, the Tigers amassed a record of 84-46-11 overall with a 23-9 mark in conference play. Oakville won the Suburban South Conference championship in 2003 and put together three 20-win seasons under her tutelage.
The Oakville High boys’ volleyball team was just as successful with an 84-24-2 record overall and a 28-5 mark in conference play. The Tigers also racked up a Suburban South Conference championship in 2003 along with three 20-win seasons.
Czuppon now has taken over the athletics director position at Oakville and hopes to continue the winning tradition of Tiger athletics. The Call asked her several questions about the goals she’s set for the athletics program and what she would like to accomplish over the next several years.
Q. How are things going from the transition of head volleyball coach to athletics director?
A. Well I’m learning the ropes and learning new things as I go and just trying to get the system down, whether that being scheduling, maintenance or whatever the case may be. This time next year, I’ll probably look back and laugh.
Q. What was your decision process in becoming the athletics director at Oakville and what exactly drew you to that position?
A. I was encouraged by some of my peers and some of the administrators of the school to at least investigate it and see if it was something that I was interested in. If I was going to get promoted at all, this would be the direction for me. With my involvement in athletics, not only in coaching but also as a college athlete and someone who had played all through high school, I’m pretty passionate about sports. When it was all laid out in front of me, it just seemed like the place that I would fit in the most.
Q. Over the next year, what are some of the goals that you would like to see achieved not only on a personal level, but also within the athletics department?
A. In the short term, it’s just a matter of correcting some of the problems. When the district decided to have one athletic director for two schools, it was almost an impossible mission. There’s so much work, so many students and so many programs for just one person, that made things nearly impossible. Our first matter of order is to just get things organized and get that system down so it’s not running in circles and not appearing unorganized and uncared for.
We’re trying to reshape that face of the athletics for not only Oakville, but Mehlville as well. Personally, it’s about improving what we’ve got and improving our facilities and improving our teams.
Q. Speaking of facilities, what do you foresee being done to improve the tennis courts?
A. Honestly, I see down the road that once we can get the money organized, then we’ll build a facility that both schools can use. It would be larger than each school would need and it would be in a communal area within our district. There’s talk of grants that could be written and money that could be earmarked, but it’s expensive and is comparable to the costs of the turf field.
Q. Oakville High is landlocked, but from what I understand, there’s roughly 10 to 15 acres behind the football field that is not being used unless the area was filled in and the trees were cleared. Do you know of any plans to utilize that space?
A. “Currently, I do not. That would be quite a financial endeavor to fill up that hole back there. There’s a steep decline as you go off the back of our property. It would be fantastic, but we would have to move a lot of earth to make that area accessible. It would be great to get another field because schools our size have game football and game soccer fields as well as practice fields.
Q. Is the district open to someone donating the dirt to fill in that area so that it can be used? Is it just that simple or is the situation more than just that?
A. It would be great to have things like that donated. But the permits that you would have to go through is very time-consuming. On top of that, it’s a matter of getting equipment back there and building around the facilities we already have. I’m sure that there’s an architect somewhere that’s just waiting for this to happen.
Q. Over the next five years, what do you envision as your long-term goals for the Oakville athletics program?
A. I really think that one thing we want to do is to encourage the public to stick with the public school system. Oakville is such a wealthy community that many of the population out there do not even go to our schools. I think that by bettering our extra-curricular activities, whether that’s band, choir, drama or sports, families will decide that we have a good thing going on in our own community instead of dealing with the commute and the tuition of schools that are outside of our district.
