Nate VanDeventer
Nate VanDeventer is in his fourth year as an athletics director at Franklin Central Junior High, but the Columbus North graduate recently won one of the top honors as an AD.
Last week, VanDeventer was named the Middle School Athletic Director of the Year for District 3 by the Indiana Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association.
VanDeventer said the district athletics directors held a meeting and took a vote. He said Grant Lewis, the Franklin Central High School athletics director, nominated him for the award.
“It’s exciting,” VanDeventer said. “Much thanks to the team that I work with. It is humbling. It’s motivating. It makes me want to work even harder. It’s a great school corporation that I have a ton of respect for. They’re really supportive with athletics.
“It speaks for our staff, our students, our administration. This is what the award means,” he added. “I would say without all those people, this wouldn’t be possible. It’s nice to be in a district that supports athletics and gives you the resources to provide our students with the best experience possible.”
VanDeventer was a multisport athlete at Columbus North, playing tennis, basketball and baseball. Following his high school graduation in 2017, he attended IUPUC — now known as IU Columbus — and graduated with a degree in business management. VanDeventer then got his teaching license at Ivy Tech and eventually got his Certified Athletic Administrator (CAA) license.
VanDeventer still resides in Columbus and makes the 52-minute one-way commute to FCJH. The Franklin Township District has been growing rapidly the past several years. VanDeventer said there’s about 1,700 kids at FCJH. In the latest high school enrollment figures taken in the summer of last year, Franklin Central High School ranked ninth with an enrollment of 3,362 students.
“The whole district, the whole corporation, it’s really supportive with athletics, and all three of us (Lewis and high school assistant AD Nick Eversole) give tremendous support because there’s not a night off for any of us,” VanDeventer said. “We all tag-team Friday nights and then split up the other responsibilities. Just alone at the middle school, it’s a lot, but we have great kids and great support.”
Prior to joining FCJH, VanDeventer was the athletics director for one year at Central Middle School and spent one year as an assistant athletics director at North.
While he was attending IUPUC, VanDeventer was the Unified track and field coach at North and helped out with the Bull Dogs athletics department, working closely with then-AD Jeff Hester, who VanDeventer credits for paving the way for his athletic administrative career. Hester currently is the assistant AD at Carmel.
“Jeff is my role model. He’s the reason I am where I am today. He was the one that got me involved at North at just an early age,” VanDeventer said.
While VanDeventer dreams about becoming a high school athletics director one day, he enjoys being at FCJH, and now enjoys the other side of the aisle transitioning from athlete to administration.
“I would consider one of my strengths to be just relating to the students. I was in their shoes not long ago if you really think about it,” he said. “That is one of the cool experiences that I’m able to have in this role, is being able to coordinate what exactly kids are looking for, what coaches are looking for. It’s much different putting on the administrative hat than the coaching hat or the playing hat. It is a big change, but I try to make the experiences for the kids the best I can.”
