You might have noticed one of the huge changes that the Urban faculty has experienced this past summer: the new big man in sports, Joe Skiffer. After last year’s Athletic Director, Greg Angilly, left to go to Virginia Beach to become the Director of Student Life at Cape Henry Collegiate, there was a chase at the position for head of athletics at Urban.

From an Urban student’s perspective, moving Skiffer to the athletic director position might have seemed to be a given. “I wasn’t surprised because it was kinda like Joe was Greg’s apprentice and he was just destined to take his spot. He had the most experience and exposure so I just assumed he was the guy,” says Andre Campbell Jr. (‘16).

However, “getting the job was a little more difficult than it seemed,” says Skiffer. “It was a rigorous process, where I had to interview with several different Urban committee, and faculty members, including Mark (Salkind) and Charlotte (Worsley).”

One might think that hiring Skiffer would be a no brainer, since he is the varsity basketball coach, and has experience with Urban Athletics. The reason for all of this serious thought on behalf of the schools board is because the difference between

Assistant Athletic Director, and Athletic Director is bigger than it may seem.

With Skiffer being a varsity coach and having his hands full, the decision to burden him with even greater responsibilities might have come a little harder. “As an assistant, you pretty much just do the work that the Athletic Director plans out … Coaching varsity basketball and doing my job is hard because I have so many things to do and worry about.”

Skiffer spoke about the new Assistant Athletic Director. “You know, I think that there have been two things that have been in my favor. One has been Kali (Heys) taking over Urban Athletics while I’ve been busy. She’s really running most of it at this point. Kali has been a huge help so far because she’s taken over a lot of the load that I’m supposed to be carrying during the (varsity basketball) season, and coming in as a new Assistant Athletics Director, that’s great.”

Skiffer compared his position as Athletic Director to coaching basketball. “The other thing that has helped is my expectations of what needs to happen, I think that every day of the basketball season I walk into practice knowing what I need to get done and how to do it, so the experience allows me to focus a bit more on other things.”

After a hopefully successful varsity basketball season, Skiffer should be able to return to his full duties as the main guy running Urban’s sports teams, and the huge workload for Heys should subside and allow her to focus on next year’s Blues volleyball season.