Brady Buckley is from the southern Illinois community of Tamms, which in 2019, had a population 694.
By comparison, Columbus, with a population of 48,150 in 2019, might seem a little bigger to Buckley. But since its much smaller than his previous residence of Louisville, he feels a little more at home.
“People think Columbus is small,” Buckley said. “I’m really from the country, so being back in a small town, it feels good.”
The 30-year-old Buckley is Columbus Parks and Recreation’s new sports program manager. He started the job on April 21, moving here with his fiancee Shanice and 2-year old son.
“I like it,” Buckley said. “The city of Columbus is very family-oriented, I can tell. I do like the small-town feel. Even though I did enjoy my time in Louisville, I’m from a small area. My graduating class maybe had about 40 people in it. So I’m back in my roots of being in a small town. I also think a small town helps me impact the community a little bit more because of the small atmosphere.”
Buckley played basketball and ran track in high school, about 40 miles south of Carbondale, Illinois. He earned a bachelors degree in physical education from nearby Murray State in Kentucky and master’s in sports management from Western Kentucky.
After obtaining his masters, Buckley remained in Bowling Green, Kentucky, to work for Warren County Parks and Recreation. He had been athletic supervisor for Louisville Parks and Recreation for the past three years before coming to Columbus.
“When I saw the job posting, and then I started to research the department, there are just a lot of new things going on here,” Buckley said. “Of course with the Nexus Park we have opening here in a few years (at the old Fair Oaks Mall location), there are just a lot of new things and changes that I thought would be great to be a part of.”
The main part of Buckley’s job is to facilitate the travel baseball and softball tournaments and adult softball tournaments that take place on weekends. He also oversees Greenbelt and Par-3 golf courses and Hamilton Community Center and Ice Arena.
In conjunction with the yet-to-be-named sports coordinator, Buckley will oversee a lot of the rec leagues, including t-ball, coach-pitch and adult rec leagues. He is hoping to have a sports coordinator in place by the end of the summer.
One of the big items on Buckley’s agenda at the moment is preparing for the start of the parks and recreation youth soccer season that will begin in August.
“That is the biggest thing we have going on right now,” Buckley said. “We are doing a lot of pre-planning, getting ready for next year, as well.”
Buckley said parks and recreation is hoping to add a flag football league and a basketball camp next summer. Those are two things it does not offer at the moment.
The flag football games likely would take place in the outfield of baseball diamonds at Clifty Park.
“It was just one of those things that (associate director of recreation) Nikki (Murphy) and I had talked about,” Buckley said. “The parks department needs to offer some type of flag football.”
